That's because we are gone on trips away from family for over 70 something hours a week while your wife has to handle everything at home alone. If you only had weekends off at a normal job you could sleep in your own bed every night. You'll never be able to justify to me how inefficient trips are ok because we get more days off than an office guy. If you truly believe that then you just don't get it. Please never join a pilot negotiating committee.

Okay, you want to count things from the prospective of an office worker.

Right now, the average line at envoy is 4-four day trips for about 300 hours time away from base. Now, to make the comparison closer we have a non-commuter who lives 30 minutes from the employee lot, who then has to ride the slow employee bus and then deal with TSA, which brings it closer to 320 hours time away from home.

The office worker has 4-five day work weeks. Let's assume he is a go-getter and puts in 10 hour days. That's 200 hours at work per month. But he has to drive to work every day. Assuming the same drive time, only our office worker gets to park in front of his office, we are up to 220 hours away from home every month.

I doubt the boss is going to call you enough to fill the 100 hour gap.

Bob. I'm not sure why you think you can convince anyone that inefficient trips aren't that bad. If you want to be paid like management you should be management. That's what managers say. I want to be a pilot to fly when I'm at work and play hard when I'm not. I detest lost weekends and Waco overnights with short legs. If you don't like to be used to fly on your trips then please trade out of the efficient ones. That is all

Try reading what I wrote. Our trips suck. 300 hours TAFB for barely above min guarantee.

Justify? Not trying to justify anything to a pilot that works here now. They have their own perspective and experience. My audience is potential new hires and to provide specifics of my experience at Envoy as new hire.

I get it more than you know. I've had the jobs you describe above for many years and slept in my own bed every night. That came with stress, 4 days off a month, office politics, phone calls at home, 2.5 hour r/t commutes to work, reviews by my boss, etc. My future here is in training, not pilot negotiations. That's headache best avoided for another 2-4 years.

Bob- I've learned to respect and appreciate your contributions here. Noted.

This is a qol issue so I thought I'd ask it here. I'm a new hire and reserve @ LGA. My schedule for July is loaded up and not many days off. Twice I've got 5/2. Is there anything I can do to get a few more days off?

If you have 11 days off, short of calling in sick or getting a missed assignment, there is not much you can do. You can try to drop a day (that will lower your pay by 3.9 hours per drop) or you can try to move things with swapping days. Either way, prepare for disappointment, their automatic answer is "denied due to staffing".

Well great. Guess I won't be going home much.

And remember, commuting is a choice.