Cabin crew per diem explained by airline group: Gulf layover allowance, US per diem by the hour, European daily rates, tax treatment and what crew keep

TAP Lisbon, five years, long haul to Brazil and the US, and the per diem question is the one that confuses the applicants comparing salaries most, because the per diem is the part of the pay that is not on the careers page and is a third of the month at some carriers. Here it is by airline group, from the crew on this forum.

What it is

An allowance paid for the time away from base, intended to cover meals and incidentals on the trip, paid on top of the basic and the flying pay. It is not a salary and it is not a bonus; it is the money for being away, and at the long haul carriers it is a large part of what the crew live on.

The Gulf layover allowance

Emirates, Qatar and Etihad pay a layover allowance per destination (an amount in the local currency or dirhams for each layover, set by the airline for the city), paid with the salary at the month end. The amounts differ by city (the expensive cities pay more) and the crew who collect the long layovers in the expensive cities earn the most. A month with two US trips and a Sydney pays allowances that add a substantial share to the basic; a month of turnarounds pays almost none. The threads on the Emirates and Qatar boards have the numbers.

The US per diem by the hour

The US majors pay per diem by the hour away from base, from the report to the release, at a domestic rate and a higher international rate (the contracts set the cents per hour). A four day trip pays per diem for every hour of the four days including the layovers and the sleep, which is why the US crew count the trip's hours away and not the flight hours. The per diem is tax free up to the federal limits and the crew live on it on the road and bank the salary, which is the US crew's standard advice to the new hires.

The European daily rate

The European carriers pay a daily or hourly allowance for the time away, often with a meal allowance component, set by the agreement: the Lufthansa and Air France agreements have the per diem tables by destination, the BA and Virgin schemes have the destination allowances, the low cost carriers pay a smaller sector or duty allowance because the crew are home at night. The TAP allowance on a Brazil trip is a meaningful part of my month; the Ryanair crew member's allowance on a four sector day is small. The gap between long haul and short haul pay in Europe is mostly the allowances.

The tax treatment

The per diem is tax free in most jurisdictions up to a limit set by the tax authority (the US federal rates, the German Verpflegungspauschale, the UK's scale rates, the Portuguese ajudas de custo), and taxable above it. The Gulf's are tax free because everything is. The crew should know their country's limit because the allowance above it appears on the tax return and the ones who did not know have had a surprise.

How much the crew actually keep

The long haul crew who eat the hotel breakfast, cook in the crew room or eat cheaply on the layover keep most of it, and it is their saving. The crew who eat out every layover meal keep little. The US crew's 'live on the per diem, bank the salary' is the discipline and the long haul crew everywhere who save are the ones who have it. The allowance is money for being away and the crew who treat it as income to be saved are the ones with the deposit at year five.

For the applicants comparing pay

Ask about the allowances separately from the basic. Ask how they are paid (per layover, per hour, per day). Ask the tax limit in your country. And understand that the long haul month is the basic plus the allowances and the short haul month is mostly the basic, which is the real reason the long haul crew earn more.