Originally Posted by
iahflyr
I've never had an issue with doing it. Picking up flying is part of the job. It's not your fault that the company hired too many people. Fly what you need to fly to make the job worth it to you. That is one of the advantages to being more senior, and like it or not, that is part of the industry.
It would increase your companies chance of growing from the perspective that it is much cheaper to have 1 pilot fly 100 hours a month than it is to have 2 pilots fly 50 hours, but that is not why I pick up open time. I pick up open time because there is a financial benefit to doing so.
This guy is probably one of the "saviors" of Continental from 1983....There is a special list for this type of pilot. Luckily there are less than 400 left at CAL, so hopefully that well isn't as poisoned as it used to be.
To answer your question:
It hasn't been empirically shown either way to increase or decrease the amount of time pilots remain on furlough.
Once the company runs out of volunteer open time pickup it usually begins offering double pay open time pickup, and if that still fails to find volunteers then if able the company will junior-man or inverse assign pilots at premium pay.
So in essence the flights will get covered, but picking up at straight time is bad form and the sign of a greedy, self-centered type of person.
Remember though, not all open time pickup is to pad one's paycheck while others are on furlough.. Some guys dropped a trip and need to get back to a "normal" line value for a month, somebody might have taken FMLA for some reason and are short on pay, etc. Don't go throwing the baby out with the bath water if you know of a perpetrator.
It is contractually allowed at most airlines, really it is up to you....Its the "max-fly open time wh0res" that really bother most people.
Side note, while CAL was furloughing junior 737 FO's (31-57/hr.) and started paying 737 captains 200% pay to fly as FO's (approx. 280-300/hr.) because the were so short of FO's.......737CA's ate it up over there.....That is just wrong.