Originally Posted by
Beanbag
Please excuse my ignorance, DAL new hire waiting for a class up. Can anyone explain what a greenie. A GS, and a what a 4000 beer is? Thanks!
If you go look at ATL717A daily trip coverage you'll see a GS bonanza. Using one of those GSs as an example you'll see a two day to FNT, block time is 1.49 to FNT and then 12 hour overnight and 2.28 back for a total of 10.30 in pay.
Now let's say that pilot is a line holder. They would get double pay* for that trip or 10.30 x 2 = 21 x $190/hr = $3990. They are gone just slightly more than 19 hours and flew just slightly less than 4 hours. So they basically made about $1,000 per flight hour if you want to look at it that way. And btw, they were done by 9am. Crack open a beer when you have a GS sitting out there and then have scheduling call and thus you have the $4000 beer in your hands. Enjoy.
FWIW there are shorter two day trips than that with less than 2 hours of flying on the 717 but on a GS would still be 21 hours. The holy grail for Atlantians is a two leg CHA/HSV/SAV/CAE/GSP/BHM overnight with min rest of 10 hours on a GS.
*Double pay happens for a line holder if they've hit the trigger which is either the ALV (82 hours this month on ATL717A) or 75 hours, whichever is less. So 75 is less and assuming they are above 75 hours they get double pay. Say they have 70. Then the first 5 hours of their 10.30 goes towards getting them to 75, then after that the remaining 5.30 is double pay or 11 hours.
For a RES pilot it'd be above guarantee not double pay. But let's say your reserve guarantee is 78.30 hours this month on the 777. You never get called out. You then on your days off get a 4-day 32.08 hour trip (ATL-JNB-ATL). You get 78.30 + 32.08 = whatever that is and you only flew 32.08... of which 14 hours you were in the back sleeping or watching a movie.
So 110.38 hours of pay, i.e. $20K, for working 4 days and sitting in a cockpit for 15-16 hours total. On the domestic side you'd try for rolling thunder if the category was habitually short staffed, so say the res guarantee is 80 hours, fly one GS trip on res on your days off and you're now at 85.15. Get that day off returned and oh, lookie here, another bite. A 3-day. So now add 15.45 hours to 85.15 and you've got 101 hours on 4 days of flying. Get those days off back. Rinse repeat your way to 160 hours.
If the category is properly staffed, which is a good thing in many ways too, but you can kiss GSs or multiple ones goodbye.