Originally Posted by
F9 pilot
Subject: Clarification on IMAX, MMAX, and Credit Hour Limits
Dear Team,
Could someone please help clarify the following terms and policies?
• IMAX
• MMAX
I keep hearing that American Airlines only allows a maximum of 1,080 credited hours per year—is this correct? (I understand this does not include premium pay, reassignment, or sit pay.)
At Frontier, I averaged 1,600 credited hours annually, which included all pay categories such as vacation, premium, and ground school.
Additionally, I would appreciate clarification on these points:
• Does IMAX only allow us to credit 90 hours?
• Can the company limit voluntary flying to MALV + 7?
• For reserve, is it true that you can only pick up up to 85 total credit hours?
Thank you for your time and assistance.
Best regards,
IMAX looks forward 3 months (246 hours) and backwards 8 months (what you actually credited) to limit your credit to 1080 in any rolling 12 month period. With a few low months to start the IMAX run the formula will allow you to fly very high credit for a few months before the low credit months disappear from the rolling 1080. When the low credit months get removed from the 1080 formula you become limited for 1 to 4 months. During IMAX limited months you still get paid the bottom of the line construction window or reserve guarantee but actual flying is limited to your IMAX number. All premium and OG flying is uncredited and can still be done while IMAX limited.
From APA:
IMAX
IMAX is one of three limitations used to restrict monthly maximums for all pilots except those on Small Narrowbody aircraft (none currently in service at AA). Pilots are limited to the lower of IMAX, the limit on voluntary flying (VMAX), or FAR limits.
VMAX
VMAX is the maximum PROJ allowed by the company for a given month. If a pilot “Posted” trip makes it through the batch run without being picked up or dropped, pilots can pick up those trips, even if the pilot is at or above VMAX, in real time by using the shopping cart and accepting the pop-up that asks if a pilot is willing to pick up above VMAX.
PROJ
PROJ is the number of credited hours a pilot is projected to receive for a given month.
for an I
DAL has a block hour limit that is very much like our IMAX; our current IMAX was designed to mimic the DAL limiter.
SWA has a limiter known as the 365 Day Flight Time max that if exceeded does not pay the pilot via a sequence protection method. SWA hours are monitored, and a pilot's monthly flying is scaled back to prevent limits from being exceeded, and, if exceeded, a SWA pilot cannot bid a reserve line and collect the reserve guarantee.
UAL monthly bids have a limiter called the Personal Block Cap that gives a 90-hour cap each month.
Each airline has slight differences such as whether sick, vacation, training or displacements count toward their limits. All of these programs attempt to limit pilots to approximately 90 hours/month.