It seems clear he means in Europe from his preceding sentence, where I think it is absurd ( including in France).
With “is absurd”, do you mean that the statement isn’t true, or that you think that pilot’s should not be earning more than software engineers?
> airline pilots are paid more than programmers here
(emphasis mine)
I just gave one geographical example where I believe that to be true. I don’t think it is true everywhere, nor do I think OP meant that.