similar position as you. I will likely stay on 77F. Lot of career left. seniority for days off, better trips, and vacation are more important to me than working a lot harder for almost the same pay. Also you’re gonna be junior for a long time as guys wait to upgrade….but I commute.

 

I'm suspect of this post. You have your position as "RFO" and you have a picture of a FedEx 777. If you were an RFO on the 777, you'd know how much you could make and you'd know that 777 FOs can easily out earn a 757 Captain. This is not in question and anyone telling you different is just ignorant of the facts. The more senior you are on the 777 the more the opportunity you'll have to bid in ways which allow you to make more.

 

Ahhh yes. Abuse. Say more things.

Funny thing is - in my 15 years and ~7000 hours of time in the right seat, the captains that made me the angriest were the ones that took the money, but acted like they didn't want the job.

 

Great detective work. You can be an RFO on other equipment besides the 777. I was awarded 77F on 20-02, and it’s a better a looking bird than the 67, so I went with it for my avatar. If I end up going to 75, I’ll swap it out so I’m not misleading.

 

I wrote this in 2018. I was comparing a 25% 777 FO to 25% 757 CA. Those don’t quite line up anymore but most of this generally still applies without any added Covid factors. If I was in your shoes and I knew I could count on a bunch of free, paid days off at home on reserve maybe I’d consider it. But if you’re flying regularly and you’re looking for best QOL for the money earned, 757C isn’t where you want to be. If I’m going to accept all the responsibilities, especially if I’m working harder, then I want more money. Why would I accept more chance of diverts, C048 approaches, getting swept, 3 legs nights, AM hub turns, on and on and on. My last sim instructor for recurrent had recently done three C048 approaches in a 757 in one duty period. For the same or better money you can have one takeoff, one leg, an ILS (cat-3 autoland if necessary) and head to the hotel. Once in a while you get a couple of legs in a duty period.

The bottom line on this really comes down to credit hours per day of work. Doing a little bid pack kung fu using your favorite bidding software will make most of this readily evident. I'm certainly not interested in convincing someone senior to me that 777 FO is the place to be, but it's really not that difficult to figure out. There is way, way more to this than simply looking at pay rates.

June bidpacks for both seats:
Max days off lines on the 757 (17 days off) pay 68.1 CH or 6.2 CH per day. 3 international Trips. Comprised of 2 leg and 3 leg duty periods. You get 3 round trip commutes to do that (unless you want to kill the 2 dead days between trips in MEM) while flying 12 revenue flights that month.

Max days off line on the 777 (20 days off) pay 69.2 CH or 8.65 CH per day.
2 Trips as an RFO. Both two 2-day front deadheads to HKG, so two "half-commutes" on the back-end of each trip with a paid two day commute to start. One 15.5 hour revenue flight back to MEM each trip for a total of 2 revenue legs that month.

Do the math on those two lines and the 757 CA makes more that month. BUT - a very important BUT - he works 3-extra days to make those additional dollars.

Since the 25% 777 FO can consistently hold carryover, he can choose to plus up his month using a 3-day trip and work the same number of days as the 757 CA above. I'll be conservative and say those 3 extra days pay 6.4 (trip rig) per day. So now - working the same number of days as his 757 CA buddy, he earns 88.4 CH of pay for the month (averaging just over 8 CH of pay per day).

777 FO: $215/hour + $8/hour x 88.4 = $19,713 for the month

757 CA: $262/hour + $10/hour x 69.1 = $18,795 for the month

Pick a more middle of the road scenario: Find some lines with 16 days off each.

A nice two trip month on the 757 both with double deadheads:
68.5 CH of pay for the month (5.7 CH per day) - some nice layovers, only one two leg day on each trip, 8 revenue legs for the month.
68.6 x $262/hour = $17,947 for the month

Over on the 777 - a single double deadhead RFO trip for the month:
77.5 CH of pay + 6 CH of over 8 BKO for the month (7 CH per day) - Two-day deadhead to Asia, some nice layovers, one leg a day when you do fly, 3 revenue legs for the month.
83.5 x $215/hour + $8/hour = $18,621 for the month

The bottom line is the "Q" in QOL is subjective. That's the nice thing about FedEx. Lots of options.

Maybe someone can't stand being in an aircraft longer than 2-4 hours at a pop.
Maybe they can hold their hometown layovers.
Maybe they prefer LCA duties.
Maybe they hate riding on commercial aircraft.
Maybe they have reasons they can't spend 12 days gone all at once or just don't like that.
Or maybe they just gotta have those 4-stripes no matter what.

But if none of the above applies and a 2001 hire is working his ass off (relatively speaking) in the left seat of the 757, even at 25% instead of earning more per day as a 777 FO ..... I'll just say - better him than me.

 

I didn't mean it to be abusive. It really did sound like something a bad captain would say.

That observation is based my four airlines and 17,000 hours as an FO.

I am completely serious.

When someone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a pilot. I don't tell them I'm a captain. Same thing I told them decades and tens of thousands of hours ago. The only things that have changed are my seniority, experience, and eyesight.

 

Why can’t everyone on here have a civil response to questions like this? Thanks for the input.