Excargodog

And yet airlines with good trip and duty rigs, and high daily minimum credit, manage all those things far more successfully. It depends, I suppose, on how the contract incentivizes management.

You get the QOL you are willing to settle for.

Mrhr5b

Forgive my ignorance but which regionals offer that sort of bidding/schedule?

Excargodog

Earn between $270,000 and $317,000 with benefits in your first three years of employment when you upgrade in 18 months.
$57,000 Signing Bonuses
$35.53/hour first year First Officer pay
401(k) match up to 8% dependent on employee contribution regardless of Years of Service (including First Officers), which is the highest among regionals
Most generous health insurance benefits in the industry combined with only a 25% employee premium share
Any additional flying volunteered for on a day off is paid at 150 or 200% your hourly rate
Hourly pay scale increases by 1.5% every year in addition to annual longevity increases
Transition of entire fleet to United Airlines to be complete in early 2018.
Minimum 12 days off per month
All pilots provided an iPad with electronic navigational charts and manuals
Duty Rig: 2:1; Trip Rig: 4:1
Hotel rooms for breaks between flights of 4.5 hours or more
Extra day off if you arrive after 2:00 a.m. on the last "day" of a trip
Up to 35 paid vacation days per year
In-house Certified Training Program (CTP) provided by Air Wisconsin instructors and simulators
Pilots paid monthly guarantee and receive benefits during CTP training
ATC call sign: "Wisconsin"

Mrhr5b

Is that from personal experience? Most guys I know are leaving air whisky. 12 days off a month is better than 11 but still doesn’t mean efficient trips, or satisfying the complaints of the original poster.

No Land 3

If you make above a certain amount of money to live comfortably, money is no longer the most important factor. Just sayin...
Does it really matter if you make 300,000 vs 400,000 a year? Maybe if you live in San Francisco, but certainly not in Florida.
Being able to be at home when you want and not stressing about commuting can be far more important than additional money.

frankgh

I wouldn't dare guess why your experience is so poor. I've held a line at DFW since December, average 13 days off a month and I've only had to commute in a day early 3 times. My trips have been very commutable. I've only been JA once and it canceled before it started. Attitude is altitude. Every time I've asked MAGpbs for some advice, he has always helped me. YMMV but mines been really good!

calmwinds

It might be unstacking. My schedule this month was horrible —— not in the same way. It seems that even though I place days first in my “prefer off” list (such as my kid’s birthday), I don’t get them off. Then, I see pilots junior to me get a schedule that would have worked for me. But, apparently, unstacking seems to focus on maximizing the flying a pilot does to the detriment of the preferences he puts in PBS.

I have read the document on the alpa site on unstacking trying to figure out what can make life more bearable. Just when I think I have it figured out, unstacking is done in an even more aggressive.

Given another 1,000 flight hours, and what I believe to be fewer FO’s to be scheduled, I am assuming the worst for my May schedule.

FollowMe

Efficiency in trip construction is a direct derivative of network schedule efficiency. Unfortunately since the mainline partners dictate network schedules to their regionals, the regional themselves have little to no ability to impact the efficiency of the network schedule. Inefficient trips cost an airline in either dollars (soft pay) or manpower (more pilots needed to cover the same amount of block). To believe that an airline is purposely creating inefficient trips is to believe that their disdain for you personally is so deep that they would be willing to make less money just to watch you suffer.

Sennant

That's a staffing problem, not a pairing problem.

calmwinds

Agreed. If we were staffed so that pairings were awarded based on what a pilot bid, from senior to junior, then QOL would be much better. It is only if either a pilot is very, very senior, doesn’t have a life outside of Mesa, or will endure suffering for maximum flying, that working here makes any sense —— particularly on the Ejet side.