How do your trips pay?
 

At OO we are fighting for marketing block or better pay (the departure time to the arrival time set by the mainline partner). Currently we are paid our historical block or better which is usually significantly less. We are being told that you guys get paid the same as us. Is that true?

We're paid scheduled or actual, whichever is greater.

Our contract contains a fairly detailed section on how scheduled block time is calculated. Basically, they use a 12-month average of the actual block time for that flight segment. The union and the company can adjust the scheduled block time every four months, if conditions warrant.

For NEW routes, the company uses published marketing schedule times for 90 days (or 150 flight segments), then they average the results to come up with a scheduled block time. Again, we are paid the greater of the scheduled block time OR the actual block time.

In the Q400, most of our trip credit is determined by duty time or time away from base (the trip rig is 1:2:4).

Hope this helps. It sounds like SkyWest management may be referring to new routes only.

It sounds like you are paid just like us. Our "credit" is a historical average block over some period. Is the scheduled block time set by Alaska or QX? I know they're basically one in the same, but just wondering if QX cooks the numbers after being given them by Alaska.

I think it's all done on the Horizon side, don't know for sure. The union has access to the data, so I'm mostly OK with how the scheduled time is computed. Believe it or not, this was a hot topic a few years ago. The union and the company have gone back and forth a few times on how "scheduled" and "actual" are measured (or calculated). If I recall correctly, there's still an open grievance from last year regarding "door closure" times for pay purposes.

Dash,

Can you explain how trip rig works for a newbie to 121? I thought that credit hours were just block time. Thanks.

Lol. Same same. I don't have a problem with how our times are calculated either, but it's not how most of the industry is paid and at least for us, puts us at a significant loss to the competition.

All I know is 4.2 is gold. I usually credit 80-85 while only logging 60-65 a month. This next trip is a block trip bust most the 4.2 guarantee will bring the credit up higher than block. Building flight time is a slow crawl on the Q. Been here for 18 months with 120 prior 121 time and am still 100 hours away from 1000 121 time

At the end of a trip you look at your block hours, your duty time for the trip, and total time away from base. You take the duty hours and divide it by two, and tafb and divide it by four. Whatever is the greatest out of the three is what you get paid.

But when you look at your block hours make sure youre incorporating the 4.2 in it.

Say you had a trip that looked like this:

Day 1:
3.0 hours block
9 hours duty

Day 2:
5.0 hours block
11 hours duty

Day 3:
2.0 block
5 hours duty

Total block is 13.4 with the 4.2.
Total duty is 25 hours, divide that by two and you get 12.5.
Let's total tafb is 60 hours. Divide that by four and you get 15 hours.

You will get paid 15 hours for the trip because it's the greater of all the amounts.

We also get a one-to-one credit for deadheads. In other words, deadheads count the same as block time for pay purposes. This is especially helpful for reserves, as they often spend 15-20 hours a month just riding in the back of the airplane to their next flying leg.

F2F: I flew a lot more when I was a Part 135 pilot. We were considered an "on-demand" operation, so our yearly limit was 1400 hours flight time. Some of us actually hit that number and had to take the rest of the year off. I typically fly 650-800 hours a year at Horizon. Ironically, pilots on reserve often work more, but fly less (due to deadheads and sits).

Great explanation.

I thought I flew a lot when I was working Part 135 but I never hit the 1400 hour mark. That sounds brutal.