You are calling me a liar? Prove it.

Im very, very far from the top of OT guys. The senior FOs are the ones playing that game leaving us new guys just the crumbs. They pick up the 7 hour day turns during critical coverage, while offering every single day of their normal line up for P2P grabs. There were plenty of those available last month. I did not get a single one. No critical this month.
Just so you know: there are a bunch of +90 hour guys on the bottom half of the reserve list. They all take home 3-4k a month. It's not the norm, but it's doable pretty easily.
Plenty of P2P turns to pick up too. 7 hours of straight pay for a day turn, beats a lot of the OT trips junior guys can get. On reserve, pick up 3 of them, get just under 100 hours of credit, 8 days off (but you spend a lot more days at home on RAP).

 

06/28/2019 Regular/Direct $3,1xx.xx
06/14/2019 Regular/Direct $1,1xx.xx

TTL 99:14 72:00 101:21 101:21 *

Next month will be a bit better than that one. Notice the low original line value. July is turning out to be about the same as what I posted above.
And no it's not the norm, but it's possible. Someone saying it's impossible is just wrong. There are guys making way, way more than this because they are senior enough to get what they want. The key for them is to get one of the insane day trip lines, drop a few and pick up a few of the same on different days. Gets you up to 110-130 (depends on the critical coverage availability) hour credit pretty easily, with 18-19 days off.
An average FO can't even smell these lines though, these are saved for the FOs who have been "medically unfit" for 7-8 years and now that their flow is approaching, they are suddenly feeling better.

I had 9 days off that month with 4 day turns, so 13 "nights off" when I was home at night. Better than some hard lines.

 

Here’s the thing. You live in base and pick up anything you can.

I made that sort of money as a LGA FO back in 2016/2017 but I lived in base and played the game well.

The reality is 95% of the pilots don’t have the ability to do that so it’s not realistic. We were the minority making that coin as FO’s.

 

99% don’t want to work down to 8 days off.

He also has very low deductions. He took home several hundred dollars more then me on my mid month check when I was in a hirer pay bracket. This guy is crazy.

 

While NOT living in base is for the most part a choice, you are right. Working down to eight days off is almost impossible for a commuter. And for most people impractical. Add in the difficulty of actually being able to pick up worthwhile OT, and those numbers are certainly not attainable on a regular basis, of at all.

And as been pointed out, there are minimal deductions. No union dues yet, and obviously no savings deductions. I pay a lot of taxes and have my savings taken out post tax, so my take home is laughable. But in the savings respect, I am maximizing my savings now, so that pain is a personal choice.

 

That’s my point. I did it but was in the 1% that was happy to do it at the time to get my hours, upgrade and get out.

But it’s not a realistic and/or sustainable way of living. Dera makes it out to be awesome, but it is a miserable way of living in order to hit those pay numbers.

You also have to be on the right fleet, right base with expansion etc which is all variable.

 

So you guys went from "Bull." and "Liar" to "it's not sustainable"?
Now we are getting somewhere.

Question wasn't "should you?" it was "can you?". And we are talking about people having second jobs. How the heck is THAT more sustainable, than just working a few extra days at your first job?
I'm sure it's different for commuters who drop trips for max days off, but how much is stalling your career because of that worth for you?

Like havick206 said. Fly your a** off, get your time, and get out.

 

You’re twisting what I’m saying.

You’re cherry picking to suit your argument. You’re conveniently forgetting that those paychecks are only really possible under a very very narrow set of circumstances.

Just like a sub 6 year flow. Sure, it’s possible, but only for a narrow window of pilots hired in 2016.

 

What else is new

 

typical FO take home remains 2200-2400 w/ per diem, ~1900 w/o

You can’t just assume people will pick up OT or that critical coverage will be offered

On the more socially responsible topic of side gigs, there are opportunities for tutoring all over. Someone said they have an insurance license, Kaplan hires tutors for the insurance licensing exams in every state. Otherwise if there’s a college or flight school you can offer tutoring there, assuming you have the academic chops.