Ferd149,

For what it's worth, I was in Saipan 11 days ago and had a talk with the station manager. He told us that in May we would increase to two flights a day from NRT. Last month it was one turn a day from NRT and KIX. He said the tourism is really down, partly due to the damage of hotels from last years storm. ??? I did not think they were that bad but he said they were.

He did make the comment that the Russian traffic was starting to die off as well. I guess there is some type of waver on the visa requirements to visit Guam or Saipan.

Hopefully things will pick up.

BFS

 

Flight Training planner, the numbers are page 7 in the bid packages. Page 8 explains a bit about hotels.

 

The google maps app has a transit option for directions. I've found this to be spot on because it draws the timetable info from all the transit databases. I use it for any US city I'm in.

 

I know you said you didn't want to give up a weekend, but if you can bid off 1-3Apr and coverage is good in Mar, you could swap and X day to 31Mar to avoid a carryout. If they did make you fly that day, it would generate a PB day you could then drop on 2 Apr if it was necessary. That wouldn't cost you any pay in Mar.

 

Download this app to your Android/Apple phone. (No, I don't get commission.) Saved me a ton of time, also works in most large cities with an established (public) transit system. (i.e. subway/train/bus)

Transit App

 

Saipan runway had been under construction for a bit, I heard that had a little to do w/ it (securing the a/c overnight.) Still nothing in the bid for April. As for seniority....things are changing. April has A LOT of long Asia trips, I'm guessing they'll go all the way to the bottom of line holders.

Baja.

 

Haven't done a lot of of PS DH's so wanted to bounce this off some people.

I just picked up a charter where I deadhead out the first day.

They put me PS on the 2nd (of 5 available) flight that day to give me almost a 20 hour layover. Take off on day 2 isn't until midmorning, so it isn't like I've got to be there crazy early. The next two flights after the one I'm on are RJ's, then a mainline. Any reason I can't move down two more flights and take the last RJ flight with a mainline back up? Or have I just answered my question and they'll only count mainlines as the flight and the backup flight...?

 

I believe you correctly answered your own question. Also, you really don't want to be the guy that causes a charter to cancel. JM .02

 

Well I've been in this situation where I can choose a non-stop deadhead on an RJ vs using my mainline dh flight. I've never had an issue booking the PS on the RJ.
If it's only a few hours different though, do realize that you will be giving up all per diem until your sign in for operation of the charter flight, although you can still have the hotel room. Granted it's not a consideration for me when I get a whole extra day and night at home, but if your just changing non-stop flights by a few hours, may be a consideration, i.e. go as sked and enjoy a dinner on per diem or go later and right to bed.
If you do deviate, be a gent and let the captain know so he's not trying to track you down before he takes the van to the layover, unless of course he's deviating as well.
You are supposed to call skeds and get permission to deviate on frontside so they know what's going on.

 

Makes sense to me. One last question. If I deviate on the backside and get back at the end of the second day (instead of spending the night for the single DH on the morning of the 3rd day), I lose the per diem but still make the daily minimum rate for that day even though I deviated to come back early...correct?