Originally Posted by
HB Pilot
So I did my time living by that ILIW. And thought it was great at the time. Then I left and you realize that you make more as a second year FO at pretty much every major out there than a 18 year captain does at XJT. Then you hit second year pay (after leaving) and get a second year schedule and hold a line and you get exactly what you would get at XJT with some good ILIW skills (15-18 days off a month) except instead of making $46 an hour as a sixth year FO (or $105 as an 18 year captain), you make $120-144 an hour as a second year FO and don’t have to go to Appleton anymore and you get the same amount of monthly time off. To each their own and if you have some reason you need to stay at a regional, nobody is standing in your way. But to suggest that the XJT schedules that you get from the line improvement window or a vacation month is superior to a legacy or major is just absurd.
At the majors, do you have the ability to advertise your trips for pilots to pick up? How much do you have to pay for someone to pick up a trip? How often do you get premium pay working on your days off? If you pick up a two day trip and fly less than an hour each way, under 150% pay you will get over 500 dollars per flight hour based on 3.75 hours min pay per day. Not great, but not bad for hardly working! Now, they are increasing premium pay to 200%.