The extra two hours of rest and shorter duty day has been a great benefit. We once diverted due to runway conditions during a snow storm and landed at 13 hours of duty. Before 117 we would fueled up and gone to the destination in bad weather and exhausted to make the 16 hours. And we would have had no option because it was company's discretion. Instead we got 10 hours rest and got to ORD safely the next day.

As far as schedules, I think there is so much that goes into building them that it would be hard to say just how much 117 affects pay. I made a lot more last year and feel my trips were way more efficient than years before.