It's difficult to gauge what a "bad trip" is vs. a "good trip" because it seems there is no baseline.

If you're a 25-year CA, or you're fresh out of the regionals, or you came from the military, the definition of a bad trip is going to vary.

What is a "bad trip/bid" or a "good trip/bid" in layman's terms? Layover location, number of legs, pay per hours? What do you avoid, and why?

Please describe 24-48 hours on a crappy trip vs. the same on a desirable trip.

Just trying to figure to what I'm getting into.

Thanks.

 

Yes.......

Like you said it depends, and everyone who answers here won't matter because only you know what a "good" trip means to you.

If I have a two day trip with 24hrs AUA layover but its non-commutable both ends, so now I'm gone 4 days, that's a bad trip.

But for a person that lives in base, its an awesome trip....one leg of flying, 24 hr beach layover, one leg home....easy!

A one day turn worth 8 hrs is awesome for a local guy, but sucks for a commuter...unless the commuter is senior enough to put a few of them back to back to back and make their own 3 day trip, but then they have to get a hotel or Crashpad each night....toss up

I personally hate red-eyes....I don't get the nap or crew meal that the WB guys get when they fly through the night and I'm fairly useless when I get home....more so than my wife already says I am!

Other guys love redeye because they get the full day of pay but they are at home doing projects, picking kids up from school, etc

And you may think you would hate redeyes after reading a bunch of posts here, but you won't know for sure until you have done a few, and then you might find out they are so bad for you personally.

BLAB: everyone has a different opinion on what is good vs bad

 

Senior CA:

Bowel movement occurs before report, just can't fit in these newer lavs and, no bidet. Covid has changed the minimum standard.

Junior CA:

No ASAP from BS'ing the entire flight about how great it is at DL compared to SWA, flying a 737.

Senior FO:

Long layover to manage side business during the week. Layover is long enough to actually set up a family photo atop the dresser.

Junior FO:

An anomaly in the space time continuum. You are going downtown with the FAs. One isn't married, very cute, interested and you finish the trip without friending her on social media or giving out your phone number.

 

Back in 2015/2016 (on the 73N), I flew lots of 4-leg/4-day trips, I even flew a few 3-leg/4-days, with min layovers of 16-18 hours. One of my favorite trips was one leg to SAN (from DTW), 18 hour layover and one leg home. Those were good trips and they went away sometime in late 16/early 17. Now, they've added a DTW-BOS before flying to the west coast on day 1. Anyway, there's just so much subjectivity to this, but I'd bet it boils down to extremely high block days followed by short overnights. The trips may not start out planned that way, but end up that way due to the current reroutepalooza and chronic staffing shortage.

 

As you can probably already tell this thread is going to cause confusion of the highest order. Even the Union messenging is confused. The Union spokesperson at the sparsely attended picketings stated the message to management is we're tired, fatigued and it is because we are flying record amounts of overtime. Of course no mention of trip quality because they can't define it for most pilots. Moreover, every pilot has the responsibility not to fly fatigued by stopping the operation and calling in fatigued. Lastly, overtime is optional and record Greenslips are exacerbated by the reduction of the Greenslip trigger.

Overall the trip quality at Delta remains the same just different aircraft flying them. Having flown the 88, 717 and 73N I know exactly what's happening. The retirement of the 88 combined with the reduction of the 717 fleet has caused that flying to be integrated into 320, 73 and 7ER fleets. Furthermore, those fleets are not only flying multi leg days but because of the range and efficiency of those aircraft you now have 3 or 4 leg 8 hr block days or red eyes combined with 4 leg days. As you can tell this is a shock for a pilot used to flying 1-2 leg days for years. Take a 7ER pilot for example, not too long ago a commuter could bid 1 10 day trip with interasia flying and long layover in sunny Palau. Now they are doing 4 legs in and out of Florida. Some are choosing to retire.

Folks, somebody has to fly the RJ style flying. Mainline pilots clamored for this flying for years and now we're getting it, plus a lot more to come. Company is about to hand the pilots a bucket of money and tell us to go fly. Each individual pilot has the ability choose what kind of flying they want to do because everything will be up for grabs. WB B is already going to New hires.

The next few years there will be more opportunities for Delta pilots than there has been in a Generation. BID WHAT YOU WANT... WANT WHAT YOU BID

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

 

*troll post

 

I would say when your 5 day trip has 3 sub 12 hour layovers in a row (with 2 at 11 or worse), then one that’s 17 bringing up the average, that’s a bad trip for fatigue. I don’t care how many legs it comprises.

 

A very subjective topic. I was 23 years on the 88 concurrent FO/Capt. Call it Stockholm Syndrome but I’ve grown accustomed to the trips. What I can say now is many of the trips are more reminiscent of regional flying in that for the duration of a 4 day trip you may not have a chance to put on street clothes one time. All meals are consumed in uniform. Forget about a run, workout or getting a beer.
That to me is a BAD trip. Part of the enjoyment of this job was the layovers. Even in a less than optimal location, DAY for instance I’ve found a good coffee, great breakfast and a nice neighborhood to take a walk through. But if for 96 hours TAFB you are either in the monkey suit, or your underwear….. well to me at least it’s pretty miserable and the prospect of this definitely keeps me from putting in for a GS and has me constantly contemplating retirement.

 

This is just plain wrong. As a junior CA on the 88 I routinely flew commutable 4 Day trips with a 30 hour layovers and only 14-15 days of block. Those do trips do not exist anymore on ANY fleet.

Put simply the trips available to me at 85% on the 88 were light years better than what I can now hold as a 320B at 30%

 

Very different work rules during the time frames you mention. The credit increase had the company continued to build those rotations under current rules would be huge.