To qualify for the credit, a taxpayer must earn money, but not too much. 1  $46,997 ($52,427 if married filing jointly) in households with three or more qualifying children. 2  $43,756 ($49,186 if you're married and file jointly) with two qualifying children.
This group excludes regional, national and international airline pilots. Commercial pilots earned a mean annual wage of $76,050 a year as of May 2011. The median reported salary was $70,000 per year, and the median-earning 50 percent of commercial pilots earned between $50,850 and $92,340 a year.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median pay for airline pilots of $114,200, but does not show the range of salaries. Payscale.com shows a median of $100,191 and a range of $37,774 to $273,010. These numbers only give us a glimpse of how much a pilot earns and how those earnings change over a career.he payoff in aviation comes when one becomes a captain for a major airline. A new captain at United makes $213,100 per year on the 737 while a senior captain on the 777 earns $264,100 per year. Again, these pilots can make more if they are willing to work harder, some as much as $350,000 or more per year.