Originally Posted by JetJock16

Disagree. …….. PBS doesn’t change the pairing; just assist in building a more efficient line. So if you can hold 18.75+ hour 4 days (75 hour guarantee) then you only have to work 4 (if you can hold higher paying 4 days then your pay will increase as such) and depending on your bidding position you can construct the exact month you’d like. You can even mix 1, 2, 3 & 4 day pairings to build 1-6 day work blocks.

As for the rest. Until this month I was never a guaranteed line holder. I was always in the “composite” range and as long as I stayed 50% or better in that range I received a full line (4 -4 day trips) with an average of 14-15 days off and pay averaging around 85 hrs/month. If I dropped below the 50% margin as a composite lineholder my month greatly improved which is interesting seeing that my bidding position deteriorated. What happened? Well as a composite PBS lineholder I was given an incomplete line meaning I only received 2 – 4 day pairings. In-order for my credit to be brought up to min guarantee they added reserve days (@3.75 hrs per) to my schedule. During the transition period between when my award was presented by PBS and when the company finalized it I contacted my crew scheduler and requested the days I wanted to sit reserve. Since I was super senior among all the reserved, I had my pick or days. So I chose weekends off and only sat reserve on days that we had the max # of reserves behind me in order to guarantee I wouldn’t be called. Plus add to it that all composited line holders get paid all their rigs whether you break guarantee or not and you can see how my month improved. In the end, the months I received an incomplete composite line I ended up getting paid around 85 hours with more than 16 days off ().

What’s also nice about being super senior in your bucket with reserve transparency is that I could place myself as first call in-order to cherry pick the open time trips. If crew support called me with a trip I would fist look at it and if I didn’t like what I saw, I would advice crew support to passed it on to one of the more Jr reserve pilots in my bucket. Since I am voluntarily “first call” they can’t force me into the trip unless I was the only pilot left. But at least as a composite lineholder, if I had to work the trip and I worked more than 3.75 for the day, I got paid the extra unlike a true reserve pilot.

Sometimes I wish I could bid for incomplete lines.

Note: Sorry for any errors, I pounded this out rather quick.