Deep-sea fortune

Flying an airplane is literally a high-paying job.

A photo of a pay slip of a Southwest Airlines pilot posted by Corbin Williams on X showed a total salary of $16,762 for the period 1 to 15 December, New York Post (NYP) reports. Even after taxes were deducted, the pay slip still showed a hefty net pay of $10,957.

For the pilot’s two-and-a-half years of service, the stub indicated an accumulated salary of almost $300,000, which is expected to go higher as the pilot adds more flying hours and experience, like a Miami-based American Airlines Boeing 737 captain’s pay slip showed on the online forum Reddit.

That post showed $458,000 in annual earnings, NYP says.

Meanwhile, sailing for 55 straight days in the Indian Ocean on an extraordinary mission promises an even bigger payday than transporting people through the air.

Texas-based marine robotics company Ocean Infinity was contracted by the Malaysian government in early December to search for a missing plane.

If the Ocean Infinity crew — using remotely-operated underwater vehicles, deep-sea drones, and advanced scanning technology — find the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in a designated underwater search area measuring 6,000 square miles, they will receive a payment of $70 million, NYP reports.

The Boeing 777 with 239 people on board vanished on 8 March 2014 while en route to Beijing, China from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

An initial search of 22 days failed to find the plane that was believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean. Another search by Australia, China and Malaysia covering 46,000 square miles in the southern Indian Ocean ended in 2017 without finding the wreckage.