Originally Posted by
saab2000
Thread drift danger.....
I have seen a SKW schedule and it was good. DEN based crew. 4-day trip. Commutable on both ends of if you live in base have half a day at home before and after the trip. There you have it.
I jumpseated on a Shuttle America flight a couple weeks to from ORD-ORF and talked to the crew there. They have preferential bidding. The F/O was about a 2 year F/O and the captain has been there about 7 years. Both are CMH based. Both of their schedules would blow ours out of the water. (By 'ours' I mean AWAC). The captain (admittedly senior) said he averages about 16 or 17 days off per month. I don't know about commutability for him. But even the F/O, with medium seniority, had nothing really to complain about, also getting decent off days and respectable trips.
I too am curious about pref bidding.......
Let's hear it from pilots who are affected by it.
pref bidding is nice if you know how the program works, and how the setting can affect you. i'm at S5 (all republic uses pref bid) and generally hold ~14 days off. it's easier to get the days off you need than hard line bidding, unless they days you need off are every weekend. those tend to go senior. i'm right about halfway in my base as far as FOs go, and as long as i don't want every weekend off or want those juicy 28hr 4-day trips, i can generally get what i want.
of course, it is possible to screw yourself into reserve even though you can hold a line due to either a very complex bid (lots of avoid and prefer requests) or bidding stuff you can't hold seniority-wise (like weekends off and commutable trips when you're in the bottom 3rd of seniority)
of course, your mileage may vary
...and now back to your regularly scheduled Skywest topic.