Originally Posted by
Qotsaautopilot
Rates do matter because it's guaranteed money. The ability to earn credit over guarantee is a personal choice. I w2 as much as a United pilot, the difference is that I bid lines I don't like to get a transition conflict, I jump when my phone shoots a flica alert out and I try not to leave town just in case scheduling might call.
So the United pilot makes the same as me, has more days off, and gets a 16% retirement contribution. But hey I don't care about rates because my credit number at months end was so much higher, right? And if that United pilot picks up just one turn out of open time above guarantee he has now beat me in every category, except credit.
They don't deposit credit or pay rates in my bank account but pay rates at guarantee travel to my account on the path of least resistance at a fixed amount wheras credit is highly variable.
Pilots at the well paid airlines can make high credit too but they don't take a smaller pay rate for it.
Above all: SCOPE and LTD!!!!
I was trying to not write a book, so I went with bullet points.
I'll clarify for you. I have NO interest in working more than the minimum. You need to take bullet point 2 into account before judging my want list. I want max credit for the days I work because I want max days off on which to spend my earnings.
To be more specific, I want to make more than a quarter million bucks and never work more than 16 days a month for that amount.
My long time beotch is the trip average. It makes my rate look 18 to 20 percent lower than it used to be. IOW, the rate looked like a raise when we saw it in 2003, but we lost the ability to earn good credit per day and in the end, the pay check stayed pretty much the same. But, we got to say that we made more money per hour.
I'm not interested in making more per flight hour, but staying stagnant at months end. We need more money in our W2, not more money in our pay rate column.