Weekend warrior
 

Hey all
Is it possible to be a weekend airline pilot? For years, I have debated about going the 121 route, but I have too many hobbies in life I enjoy doing along with flying that I can't give up. I know seniority is one of the biggest elements, but I have 10,000 total / 3000 multi turbine / 5 years 135 experience, so I'm not a newbie.
Any feedback would be great, thanks

Friday to Monday, Friday to Sunday, or Saturday to Monday is possible. I did it in the RJ days, because it was the only days you had a prayer of getting a livable, commutable schedule. Saturday Sunday exclusively is not that realistic because you may not reach the required credit value to make a schedule unless you do some, and the airline allows, dropping to keep your flying on those days and that’s if they have the reserves to allow that which in this day and age, especially on the peak months…good luck.

If you mean work Friday-Monday, and then have T, W, Th off, then probably.

If you mean only work Saturday and Sunday…fogetaboutit.

Seems like a Sat-Sun would be tough, adding Fri or Mon to it might work. I know this request for weekends only its a little ridiculous but with the ongoing and increasing pilot shortage issue I figured that airlines would have a tough time saying no :-)

At SWA, we have purity in our lines and most of them are 3 on / 4 off as a broad generalization. Being that weekend flying is less desired and goes junior, you absolutely could do a Fri-Sun or Sat-Mon schedule.

That said, have you considered going to a legacy and bidding onto a fleet type that has low reserve utilization? For example, a widebody and then bid long call?

Some of those in that position can chime in but it seems you’d get A LOT of time at home that way.

You don’t get to go in and give them you’re availability in the interview no matter how much they need pilots

Agree, but over 20 years of not steering towards 121, if I was upfront with this crazy request at the interview, what's the worst that could happen :-)

Thanks for the info, my goal is going to be hard to achieve, so these suggestions are great.

It’s pretty simple. They’re going to tell you that you’re going to get whatever schedule your seniority can hold. They don’t make ‘special deals’ for scheduling, that’s just not how it works.

You’d get laughed out of the interview.