A commercial pilot at a regional airline makes less than $50,000 a year, many are closer to $30,000. When you get hired by a big airliner (over 1500 hours of flight time) and eventually you get to captain (not co-pilot) then you increase substantially, but nowhere close to $20,000, unless you fly a drug lord in strange places.
My gut tells me that calculus goes by the wayside when you're flying Bill Gates around the world, or even just flying your 'garden variety' billionaire and his/her family around the country. I could be totally wrong here, because I'm neither a jet owner nor a pilot. But I've worked around enough uberrich people in my day to know that their domestic staff gets paid really well, and I have to believe a private pilot cracks into the sixes rather handily. Whether or not he/she cracks $200k is another matter, but it seems likely.
There aren't very many of these jobs going around at any given time, and they involve exhaustive security and background clearances. You are also privy to a ridiculous amount of inside info flying these guys around everywhere, and you need to be trustworthy, i.e., come with references from other billionaires and such. It's a very hard world to break into, and if flying commercial paid better than this did, no one would bother trying.
I have friends who are pilots at the majors who clear $300,000+ a year. Pay has risen substantially since the round of bankruptcies cleared legacy debts. FedEx and UPS apparently pay the most - although I'm not sure why.
This is correct (have family in the industry). Pay for pilots at major domestic airlines is based primarily on seniority and equipment you fly. Captains at the end of their careers flying the larger planes - 747, 777, 787, A350 - are easily clearing $300,000 with great benefits.
Flying cargo is more dangerous than flying people? There is stuff that is banned from being transported in a passenger plane that can be flown in a cargo plane.
I'd also imagine you are logging a lot more hours, facing more intense time pressures, and possibly flying some really irregular or odd-hours routes when you're flying cargo.
