United States · BLS May 2025

Flight Attendants Salary

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 131,650 flight attendants across the country. Pay varies more by state than most people expect, and the state that pays most is not always the one that leaves most.

Median pay · the United States

$63,580A year. BLS publishes no hourly wage for this occupation.
Jobs counted131,650Wage and salary jobs
What flight attendants earn in the United States, May 2025
PercentileAnnualHourly
10th percentileEntry and lowest-paid$35,110Not published
25th percentile$51,760Not published
MedianHalf earn more, half less$63,580Not published
75th percentile$95,640Not published
90th percentileMost experienced and senior$136,430Not published
MeanThe average, pulled up by the top$77,440Not published
How we got this
  1. Median wage in the United StatesBLS OEWS May 2025. Half of flight attendants earned more than this, half less.$63,580
  2. Jobs countedWage and salary jobs; the self-employed are not surveyed.131,650
What we assumed
  • Wages are BLS OEWS survey estimates for May 2025, not job postings or offers.
  • OEWS surveys wage and salary workers. The self-employed and business owners are outside it.
  • BLS publishes only an annual wage for this occupation, because a standard 2,080-hour year would misdescribe it.
Technical details

Method occupation-wage-v1Data bls-oews-2025-05-v1

Which state pays flight attendants the most?

New York pays a median of $126,650, Pennsylvania $39,520. That is a gap of $87,130 before either state's taxes or prices are counted.

  • New York. Take-home there depends on New York wage tax, which the salary-after-tax calculator computes on this median.
  • The nominal figure is not the comparison. A higher salary in an expensive state can leave less than a lower one somewhere cheap. Each state page adjusts for tax and price level.

Common questions

Flight Attendants pay in the United States, answered

How much does a Flight Attendants make?

The median wage for flight attendants in the United States is $63,580 a year.

Half earn more than that and half earn less. The figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage survey for May 2025.

What do the highest-paid flight attendants earn?

The top tenth earn $136,430 a year or more, against $35,110 at the bottom tenth.

Experience, specialism, employer and the part of the United States someone works in all move a wage inside that range; the survey reports the spread, not the reason for it.

How many flight attendants are there in the United States?

The survey counted 131,650 of these jobs in the United States for May 2025.

It counts wage and salary jobs, so the self-employed are outside it.

Sources

Where this data comes from