Originally Posted by
patelam
This past May, I used 12 days of vacation to create a block of 56 days off by sliding and expanding it (including bidding to work the first half of one month, and the back half of the third month). The 12 days covered my reserve days (intentionally bid).
In August, I worked Aug 3-13, with 20 hours of block. My next trip pays 97 hours for 50 hours of block starting in the middle of September. That leaves me with 37 days off in between those trips, and basically 3 months off this summer without doing much.
FedEx pilots make their coin picking up premium trips in those gaps, they'll never come close to hitting the block hour limits, so they can really wrack up the credit hours. YTD, I have 225 block hours, and I'm a 2nd year FO that hasn't sat reserve this year.
I passed up a premium trip that paid 25k in one of those gaps (I had prior commitments), but the same trip at captain rates would be worth well over 40k.
A captain and even senior FO could easily hit 285k if they grabbed some of those premium trips.
Hope that helps you understand us a little better!
Yeah that does help. So there are premium trips being picked up to get those kinds of numbers although not necessarily all the time. Also does your schedule for the next month come out, you look at it and then select your vacation days to touch the trips you want off? For instance you being a 2 year FO I take it there were some trips in between the start of aug and the end of sept you were assigned but didn't have to do because of vacation. Or do you bid your vacation days at the start and know ahead of time which month(s) you can get these types of time off? Just curious. Thanks!