I tried to do this to get an OAL guy in flight deck. CSA said I cant and that its only for FAs. I said really? Then he said well you can but why would you when you can have the cockpit? I replied to get the AA guy on the flight.
He mumbled some crap then stood there until he was certain I wasn't moving and issued the passes as requested.
Some people...

Alaska you need two flights. They probably aren't going to help you out in any shape or form. As they recently emailed saying "you choose to commute, Alaska isn't a commuting airline". Hopefully our negotiators are reading this thread.

The best commuter policies are the ones that don’t require commuting. The DH is company provided and part of your duty day.
Kalitta, Omni & ATI. Other ACMI do home basing as well, but those three are closest to mainline pay and decent work rules. Never a crashpad, always get a hotel. Keep all airline miles and most hotel points.
That said, the single long trip each month isn’t for everybody. There are schedules with it broken up, but it’s still more than 4 days in most cases. I have a 4 day this month, then the other 12 all at once for example. In all 16 days I’ll do 6 flights. The rest is long/short call in cities most folks run to for vacations. If you can deal with longer trips, you also get your time off in much larger chunks too... which makes taking multiple family vacations each year a breeze.
It’s not for everybody, but for those who won’t/can’t move and hate commuting it can be a great deal.
Just some extra info to process.

One thing is for sure, it’s a great time to be a pilot. Oh, and no commuting excuse required, you have a real seat, and if the flight cancels they just rebook you. Zero stress ever.

Wrong forum Ray.

Mainline pay? At those places?

I mean, the pay is better than Endeavor (with a artificially low guarantee), but no where near a major-- or what that job should pay.

Shoot for better. You are worth it.

I don’t really post much but I saw this.

I’m a 4th year kalitta guy. I grossed $300,000 for last year. New hires are grossing over $100,000. So what are you getting at?

Someone offered a point of view regarding our commuter policies. I agree with them that we have the best commuter policy. A few days before I go to work I look on Expedia and pick a flight I want to take to work, and I'll normally request the hotel I want. I have enough points and miles that I normally get upgraded to first or business class. If either of them are full I get economy plus. I normally avoid 2-3 airlines for personal preference so that helps me put the bulk of miles on a few airlines. So I if I miss my flight do to mx, wx, act of God, I call travel and they either put me on another flight or get me a hotel. That in a nutshell is how our commute goes.

Apologies.

I had no idea Kalitta guys made that much these days. Apparently this isn't the same Kalitta from years ago.

Kalitta pay used to be pretty bad. They signed a contract a couple years ago and Omni followed suit. Pay ranges from $110 on 1st year to $296 topped out. Jetblue took a 6% raise on E190 rates.......

As I said, Kalitta, Omni & to a lesser degree ATI are certainly comparable. Add in the never commuting and never needing a Crashpad, never commuting on days off for early/late shows/finishes, getting status on most airlines, hotel points up the yazoo and it’s really a pretty good gig.

Kalitta pays a 4th year copilot 148 an hour. You would need 2000 hours to gross 300k. In addition they have no retirement plan other than a 5% match on contributions to the 401k. The reserve guarantee is 64 hours.

Anyone who has been here 4 yrs is a captain if they want to be. $227. Retirement is lacking....working on it.

How many days home a month do you get?


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14-16 on a regular month. If max time at home is your thing then working at a major/LCC and living in base with quite a bit of seniority is what you want. If you want to live in your lake house in the middle of nowhere and not commute....then this works well.

Not knocking Kalitta but you'd still need to work 1300 hours to gross 300k at that rate.

We don’t work with part 117 rules. Having said that it’s pretty easy to “credit” those kind of hours. We always have 3 pilots and some times operate double crews for the longer days.

Next contract will be addressing the retirement short comings.

How does extra crew members increase your pay for a rotation? Based on what you’re posting and considering the deadheads on either end you are crediting over a 100 hours a month working 12 to 13 days. Those are great schedules or you have amazing work rules.

We get k4, your job isn’t as bad as it once was. But let’s not get silly and say it’s better than a legacy Airline. Sincerely, I’ve been at that DHL ramp myself

The APC Rates haven’t been updated. By the 4th year they probably have upgraded already. Omni upgrades are around 2 years.
$300k as a junior CA over there is entirely reasonable.

Nobody is saying it beats a legacy job, for some it might.... topic for a separate discussion. This discussion was best commuting policies. The job is certainly as good as a JB, Spirit or others in the majors forum. If you like large blocks of time off all at once it may be a better job for some.

So, if it’s a commuting policy comparison, I’d say K4, Omni & ATI have the best policies. Positive space, keeping the miles, all the time every time, never on their own time, counts towards duty time, never need a Crashpad as hotels are always provided and in most cases the pilot keeps the points.

However, I think the discussion was meant to be of the airlines jumpseating to/from work who has the best commuter policy. That would exclude the ACMI’s from the comparison.

Going into the weeds on the details, but you can have some protection on double deadhead trips if you meet with any portion of the scheduled deadhead. Say the company has scheduled MEM-DFW-SAN on AA and you live in OKC for example. If you book OKC-DFW-SAN using the same leg as they did from DFW-SAN you are protected once you get to DFW. I’ve been able to use that far more than I thought I would when it first came about.


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There are 4 Categories for the Jumpseat on SWA and within each category it is FCFS. The 1st Category are SWA employees on company business. The 2nd Category are SWA Pilots. The 3rd Category are authorized SWA employees (Dispatchers, Mechanics, Instructors, and Station Managers). The 4th Category are OAL Pilots. So as an OAL Pilot not only can you be bumped by a SWA Pilot who shows up after you but it could be a SWA Dispatcher or Mechanic. But as others have said they can also take the 4th F/A jumpseat if it is available.

First, the pay at K4 won't be quite what you get at a legacy. The big difference is retirement, but there will be a push for it in this next contract. It's a trade-off for those who commute, however. Especially if you chose to live in a remote location. If you're commuting 3-4 times a month and losing 1-2 days for each commute, how much money is more time at home and not sweating a commute worth? For some it's priceless.

Pay for extra crew members. If you have 4 crew members on a leg, all four of you are paid for it. I may sit in a crewmember seat for 2 hours of a 8 hour leg and sleep in a bunk the rest of the time, but I'm paid for 8 hours.

Reference reserve rules. Reserve is very different here. You are given your 16-day schedule. In some cases, it is all reserve. In other cases, you may have a reserve period thrown on during your line. This last part is not a bad thing as you are given 4 hours of pay for it. Pull 4 reserve periods in a 16-day trip and it's another 16 hours of pay. I've sat reserve everywhere from Honolulu, Hong Kong, Anchorage, Istanbul, Leipzig...

As a junior pilot, I credit a little over 70-80 hours/month. So not the 100 hours it used to be, but not bad.

It's a different lifestyle that may work well for some, not for others.

Majors with Best Commuter Policies
 

Not United.

Inability to advance book and hold Jumpseat to get to work.
Inability for online UAL pilots to use empty FA jumpseat on UAL aircraft.

Here’s UPS policies:

Ability to reserve the jumpseat(s) - yes, 13 day out, first come first served. 4+ Jumpseats on all our planes.

Positive space options - if associated pairing has a CML deadhead* to or from work, you can deviate and choose your own flights; UPS will pay up to the cost they were going to pay for the scheduled flight. Also available when picking up time and a half OT trips. *We don’t have as many of these types of trips as FX does.

Commuter hotel options - basically none.

Full reimbursement of airport parking fees - yes in very specific and rare cases, otw no, but like FedEx you can park at the UPS facilities.

Protection: basically if you are on a UPS plane heading to work and anything happens making you late or miss a sign in, you are free and clear (but not pay protected for what you miss). There is also language about being on a ‘commercial flight,’ to work and having the same protections. No backups neede, no time limit requirements, nada. From what I’ve heard from guys who’ve had to use the policy, you apparently get a call from one of our “management,” folk asking what happened, then they give you the canned message to make sure to commute more responsibly in the future.

We have guys commuting from all over the world.

Commute more responsively next time? So if you follow management’s commuting policy and don’t make it, it’s not considered commuting responsively? If their commute policy is not responsible enough for them, why don’t they change it to a level of responsibility that is satisfactory to them? Or just say thanks to the pilot for following their commute policy?

Yes, this has saved me once. But many times, this provision doesn’t apply. What if your deviation is just one leg to your layover? Should we instead deviate to the second leg of the original DH just for the protection on that leg? In essence, unless your deviation just so happens to go through your the city of the second leg on your original DH, its useless.

My question is, what’s the difference whether you catch up to the second leg? Why not protect the entire deviation regardless of whether you catch up to the second leg? This policy is completely inferior to legacy airlines.

They’re (presumably) required to say something so we smile, nod, thank them for their time and continue our day.

UPS also has the ‘fly part of a scheduled DH and be protected’ language.

I understand what you’re saying. But do they say any similar comments when pilots follow other parts of the contract? Or is it just understood without saying that both parties just complied with the contract and are continuing on their respective days?

Rhetorical, it just sparked a nerve with me because of similar experiences with past employers.

You have still lost me on how this gets you more pay. Everyone gets paid for the entire flight at every airline I am aware of when the crew is augmented.

That’s all it is.
One thing that does need to be fixed is pay protection for trips. You are pay protected for a line, but not for a trip. It’s not unusual to lose trips for IOE or... even worse... other pilots will try to take part of your line. No pay protection for that leg if either happens.

:eek:
I hate it when the company acts like they're doing you a favor or tries to intimidate for something that’s in the contract.

It’s the same way everyone else does. Delta has green slips trips (or whatever it’s called) if a trip drops into open time and I wann pick something up on a day off, bingo bango. I get paid at time and a half. So I’d catch a commercial flight from my home and get paid at 150% pay to sit in a seat and have a nap. Arrive at destination and sleep. Operate a flight someplace and get paid @150% pay. Arrive at destination and sleep. Wake up and catch a flight home and get paid @150%. Day off pay is 4 hrs or whatever is greater. Not exactly the best but it’s a start.

Yes, our 64 hr min is low, but I never seem to do be near there. Some guys yes, others no. I normally do in the upper 90’s to low 100’s. If I have a 90-100 month and snag a OT trip that can realistically pay 20-30 hours I’ll do it in a heartbeat. And that can be as easy as commercial from my home to cvg and sleep in a hotel, operate to Japan, then Hong Kong. Sleep in a hotel and go to anchorage the next day. Or one leg from cvg to Leipzig. And dead head home.

We get paid for our commercial dead heads. We get paid to sit reserve. It all adds up.

Some of our cka are pulling in up to and over $500,000 a year and good on them.

We don’t operate on part 117 work rules. We can go over the usual 30 in 7 or whatever it is called now a days. 3 pilots equals more time aloft and 4 is even more.

Also, it’s pay credit hours, not hours actually worked that help. Lots of guys at my seniority on the 400 are pulling in near what I made. Some more, some less. 767 guys not so much. I go to work, make as much as I can and go home. Each month I have a two week vacation with my family. I use the points and miles earned for free hotel stays and air travel.

Some of our pilots live in other countries. Some travel the USA in a RV and go to wrk from where they left the camper. We had some guys living on boats. Company buys em a ticket to go and come back (except for the foreign guys I don’t know how they work it) but it works for them.

Does this help you understand? Hope it helps. Just trying clear it up for you as best as I can.

Deadheads are still paid at 50% even on days off not 150%. So most times you get the 4 hrs of day off pay.

My mistake you are correct.

Big picture what you’re talking about is negotiation stuff vs this thread about what the present polices and options are around the industry.

Small picture, we all have to figure out what works best for us individually. Odds are if you can get a nonstop direct to the layover, you’ve got some options domestically at least. For the most part given the way we tend to bid, that Dh is relatively close to our neck of the woods so there are likely multiple flight options to get one there. Basically because for most flights in a one leg situation, you’re at either end of a hub/spoke. There’s also a pretty good chance that one of those flight options is the company’s option, it just may not be the one you personally want to take. Maybe you have more FF miles on DL and want them vs AA or you can’t stand a particular airline. Or more likely the company DH choice is one you prefer not to take. Ie it gets in on Sunday night with a 24hr or more layover before leaving and you want to take a later flight and have protection.

All valid discussion points going forward, though from the outside imo they shouldn’t be discouraging factors in taking this job relative to the industry.


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