Originally Posted by
kfahmi
How do you guys define good vs. bad trips? Is it the ratio of TAFB divided by credit hours? So for example, a trip with a TAFB of 80 hours with a credit of 16 hours would be bad, whereas a trip with a TAFB of 80 hours with a credit of 30 hours would be good? Or am I dramatically oversimplifying?
I guess there are other factors that go into it...like in December, I'd probably take a lower-credit trip to San Diego as opposed to a higher-credit trip to Calgary...
Anyhow, would just be curious to learn about how you judge the 'quality' of a trip beyond the very simple metric of TAFB/Credit hours.
You're kind of right in your assumption that there are a lot of ways to define what a good trip is since everyone wants something different. The one general thing that's constant is that a trip that allows you more credit for less time away from base is a better trip. You can have someone senior who holds four 25 hour 4 days per month and someone junior who gets assigned four 16 hour 4 days per month. The senior person could work the same number of days as the junior person yet get paid 36 hours more for doing so. That's a huge amount of money.
A lot of people are commuters and think of a good trip as being a commutable trip. I might for instance bid a bunch lower credit trips in layer 1 that are commutable because a lot of the really high credit trips aren't commutable on both ends. If I can avoid paying for a hotel room, or get home a day earlier bidding lower credit is worth it. People who live in base wouldn't have to deal with that.
Some people also just like to bid or avoid bidding certain overnights. Places like MIA, LGB, LAS, PHX, AUS go more senior than you'd expect even when they're part of really bad trips. I've flown with a few people who have family members in certain overnights so they bid worse trips just to overnight there.
A 'good trip' is different for everyone but in general more pay for less time away from home is what makes a good trip.