Originally Posted by
BAe3100FO
Questions for relatively new/ish pilots:
In general how easy is it to drop Reserve days (1-7 days) and then pick up a 4 day (as an example) in open time that works better for your schedule? Or drop a couple of day trips that don't work for your schedule? Pay being secondary...
Also, what is the minimum hours that a pilot HAS to work in a month in order to keep benefits?
TIA
The other option that is available at company discretion is short Leaves of Absence. The company looks at staffing and will offer this option in locations that they believe they can afford to give people extra time off. These can be for as little as 1 week or as long as 3 months. If you take 1 month or longer you don't accrue vacation for that month, but for less than a month you get all benefits and vacation accrual. I believe you keep your medical for all of these, even those longer than 1 month.
Availability for these varies by location and time of year, but are much more available from Sep - May than Jun-Aug. As an example, there were only full month leaves offered for June and only for :
SFO LAX 787 CA
DEN IAH ORD 756 CA
SFO 787 FO
DEN 320 FO
CLE 737 FO
but for last Feb there were
Full month only:
EWR 777 CA
LAX, EWR 756 CA
SFO, LAX, DEN, IAH, ORD, DCA, EWR 320 CA
ORD, CLE, EWR 737 CA
IAH 756 FO
SFO, LAX, IAH, ORD, DCA, EWR 320 FO
GUM, SFO, LAX, DEN 737 FO
Partial and Full month:
SFO 777 CA
SFO, ORD, DCA 756 CA
SFO, LAX, DEN, IAH, DCA 737 CA
SFO 787 FO
ORD, DCA, EWR 777 FO
LAX, ORD, DCA, EWR 756 FO
DEN 320 FO
IAH, ORD, CLE, DCA, EWR 737 FO