Originally Posted by
C340
As far as DRL goes, I heard from the CP's mouth at orientation that they are wanting DRL pilots flying longer rotations, ie not the 4 day rotations, for obvious reasons. While we are at it, it is also somewhat confusing that DRL staffs 3 captains per aircraft. Split evenly, thats about 10 days a month per captain, right? The CP also said they are expecting pilots to fly 14-16 days a month, which of course makes sense from an efficiency standpoint, but it also brings up questions as to just how the DRL scheduling works. Is it truly up to the three captains, or is there more to it than that? How much flexibility is actually there? It doesn't sound like someone could work, say, 8 days a month (making less $, of course), if that was what they wanted. I know there are floater captains out there, perhaps on reserve, who fill in as needed. I assume these come from DRL teams? But how does that factor into choosing one's own schedule with their team? I know I am putting the cart before the horse here, but I think some transparency with this is useful in terms of helping someone decide if they want to plan to make a career here. Let's be real - one can't be blamed for wanting this transparency with these details when one can go get hired at the majors right now and make way more while working a lot less.
It really is make your own schedule between the three. The flexibility is between you and your other 2 captains, that's it.
The only hard requirements are, 100% coverage of the left seat when the schedule is submitted and no less than 4 day rotations
We have scheduled overlaps of just 1 day up to as much as even 6 days
They don't care how much each of the three captains work. EX: May for us - 1 captain - 16 days, 1 captain - 14 days, 1 captain - 15, June - 1 Captain - 12 days, 1 Captain - 15 days, 1 captain - 14 days
It really is up to you, want to make more, work more, don't care about making more, work less.
We build our schedule, we submit that schedule, they input the schedule. Only time I have ever heard back from them about our schedule was due to a typing error of dates and they saw no overlap, hence no coverage for that day.
Unofficially I have heard that 12 is a minimum in a month, and consistently. So if you only schedule 12 every month and that is your plan to only work 12 every month of the year, and that is because of benefits. Word of mouth is less than wanting to work 12 they then consider you part time.
The floater captains are there only for the purpose of filling in for one of the 3 if 1 is going to be out for an extended period of time - Short term disability