Let's say the "average pilot" gets 4 weeks of vacation and sick leave used, per year.

At our (crappy) vacation rate of 21 hrs. per week, that works out to 84 hours total, per year. So lets add that to the ALV, which is supposed to average 75 per year. 75x12mo. = 900 hrs. per year, plus the 84 is 984, divided by 12 mo. = 82 hours per year, average.

But if the average is really 87, then 8000 pilots are somehow picking up, on average, another 5 hrs. per month, every month, that's an additional 40,000hrs. flying, per month, divided by 75 = 533 less pilots needed to fly the schedule.

Hey guys

How much does the company reimburse us for our FAA physicals? Just saw my local guy and he's raised his rates dramatically. Thanks!

Buzz

I thought we went from 30% pre-PBS, to 15% now. I've never verified this.

Timbo,

I've really been enjoying your stories today. Good thing I haven't had a beer in my hand or it would be all over the keyboard.

To be fair to Leo (speaking of Rat Bastards...) my recollection is Delta made an agreement with Priceline very early and got a percent of Priceline's shares and a whole bunch of Priceline warrants which required Delta to meet certain sales goals WRT Priceline ticket sales of Delta seats.

Priceline's stock subsequently took off and Delta cashed in big time. I am decidedly not a fan of Leo Mullin, but I think in this case selling some seats for cheap paid off in a big way.

The average ALV, a.k.a. TLV is 77, I think. But I think vacation is included when building a ine. So guys would be, on average, picking up 10/mo. That's actually plausible, since I think vacation doesn't count against pick-up. And, as we mentionned, as long as it's off the Swap Board, only FAR's count.

I probably fly 77, on average, but I'm at the low end of the specturm, relative many of the captains I fly with. I don't speak to as many F/O's, but anectdotally, seems to me they also like their crack.

Maybe 87 is right, sadly. Maybe it's only ~84 with Reserves included?

Tell him you're not the Hollywood type who's flying his own 737 (even though he's seen you on the Tee Vee), just a poor airline pilot, so it needs to be cheaper.

Better answer: EKG is $233, non-EKG is $142

With all the wide reports published and available for all to see, it's pretty easy to click on any category and scroll down, see how many total lines there are, and how many reserve lines there are.

I have not done it, but if you've got the time, you can check it out. What I do look at every month is, the first couple pages of line awards, just to see what the most senior guys are bidding...and guess what, those guys can do the Math!

Most of the guys are sharp enough to put trips together that come in right at the max value per month, every month, which is 81:30 for my category. There are several junior guys who only get about 68 though, because of our trip mix, there's no 'short trips' left to fill up with, after about page 3 of 20! And there's rarely any open time left after initial awards, so little hope of picking anything up in the first PCS run.

They have been pulling guys out of the category from the two bids prior to this one. We are now minus 30, which on a total of 200 (now) is a 15% reduction. And that's at the top of the food chain, so that snowball rolls all the way down the hill...

Airline Pilot Central (sorta part of this forum site) has a good breakdown of payrates for the various carriers as well as fleet types, bases, etc. It's a good starting point at least and then he can search the forums for more specific information once he's decided where he wants to go.

You probably already know all this, but the "best" company varies pilot to pilot. The biggies are:

Pay?
Bases?
Fleet Type? (ie domestic/international)
Future Prospects? (scope, retirements, aircraft orders, etc)
Retirement Contributions?
Time to Upgrade? (see future prospects above)
just to name a few.

It all depends really on what he wants. Some gigs like World Airways are great for guys that don't mind being gone for long stretches. They have home-basing (basically) and decent pay/bennies. Sometimes it pays to think outside of the box, especially if you don't want to live in a hub or commute. There are plenty of options besides the traditional route of Delta, AA, United, SWA - of course there's not much hiring going now anyways so he's got some time to do his research.

Oh yeah, I heard FedEx pays okay too.

Ditto on the Burger King advice

Yeah, I remember it, and I would say Leo made a lot of coin, but what it really did was to devalue our product, and teach our customers to wait until the last minute to book a flight, as late as midnight the night prior to an early departure, because DL would dump the empty seats onto Priceline last minute, where guys like that one I mentioned above, would scarf them up for $20!

I also recall that at that time, Delta got rid of a lot of contracts with Travel Agents, and/or cut their commissions way back, some of whom sued Delta over their sale of seats on Priceline, undercutting them.

Overall, it was a short term gain (from the Pricline stock runup) which then lead to a long term meltdown in the industry pricing power.

Leo taught our customers to shop on-line for the lowest fares, rather than go through a travel agent.

Hee hee. I'll have to try that next time.

Thanks IA. I lost a little in the transaction.