Originally Posted by
Qotsaautopilot
The only superior soft time we have is transition conflict and only about 10% of the group gets it reliably, myself included, and I have to bid lines I hate to get it. It also doesn't make you money unless you pick up over top if it.
Vacation conflicts are not soft time because you pay for every hour dropped out if your earned vacation bank. There is no free lunch there.
Training conflicts only helped some because we can train on days off. Soon we will all train on days off on our iPads so what little soft time was there is gone.
Now "ask me about my four days off". Also ask a southwest pilot that has min 16 in 31 day month and min 15 in a 30 day month how many days off he has between trips. I guarantee it's almost always at least four and for those lines that have two days off one week will have 10 the next and there are a portion of pilots that will bid those.
Let's stop kidding ourselves that we have some superior work rules that no one else has.
You are saying exactly what I have been advocating to others I work with. The work rules we have are nothing great. I think the part some like is the ability to credit high hours every month. I don't know about you, but I would rather do it at a much higher pay rate and not have to be out flying my a55 off every month and manipulating my schedule to do so.