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Schedule Q’s

Old 12-17-2022, 09:24 AM
  #11  
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Is PBI a “base”?
I don’t mean as a home base, that could be anywhere obviously, but what are the busiest bases where the majority of trips begin/end?
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Old 12-17-2022, 09:39 AM
  #12  
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PBI is certainly a busy place for NetJets, and is one of the locations designated as a Service Hub, where ground crews are contracted to provide cleaning/servicing, and maintenance conducts extra preventative inspections. Others include (but are not limited to) TEB, VNY, and HPN.
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Old 12-17-2022, 10:23 AM
  #13  
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When you get your monthly schedule are you on call 7 days straight, or are the trips known and published a month in advance, so you know where and when you’re going? And are the trips subject to change last minute?

When I last flew part 135 in 1979-83, it was 95% on call, short notice, type stuff. A few customers would book maybe a week or two out, but often those plans would change at the last minute.
Is that pretty much still the case?
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Old 12-17-2022, 10:45 AM
  #14  
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Timbo, I know this may be new to you, but don’t think of this as your typical 91 gig which may do a little 135 flying. This is a very large 91K/135. Forget what you may know about “on call”. If you’re scheduled for a 7-day tour, expect to airline somewhere to an airplane on Day 1 and not be home until Day (night) 7. In between, you’ll fly, break, sit a little, airline to another airplane, fly some more, etc. The chance of you sitting at home on any of your duty days is practically nil.

And here, EVERYTHING is a last minute change. Even if you’re briefed for something the night before, it will all be different in the morning. If you’re not comfortable with that, this is definitely the wrong operation for you.
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Old 12-17-2022, 10:58 AM
  #15  
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Sounds like it’s the same as being on call 24-7 for 7 days, except you’re chasing airplanes around the country on the airlines instead of sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring?

The trips that annoyed me the most were the 0700 push to fly less than an hour, say BOS-TEB, then sit at the FBO all day waiting for the client to return from a meeting that was supposed to be over by noon, but ran long, and then they decided to get dinner, and now it’s 7pm and they want you to hurry up and get them home!

Is that pretty much the same type of flying on most NJ trips?
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Old 12-17-2022, 11:21 AM
  #16  
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If you flew a client to ??? and they weren’t scheduled to fly back for several hours, it would probably be an entirely different plane/crew to do the return trip. Although it’s different fleet to fleet, most fly 3-4 legs per day. There really isn’t much of a “typical” day. I’ve started the day expecting to end in California, and instead ended down deep in the Caribbean before. Changes…always changes. Sometimes even in mid-flight. You have scheduled work days, but no idea what each day may hold.
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Old 12-17-2022, 11:59 AM
  #17  
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Sounds interesting, I’d much rather be flying 3-4 legs a day than sitting at an FBO all day waiting for the clients to return.

I did have a couple good trips where we took two couples to St. Thomas on December 31, laid over 2 days on the beach and then flew them back to BOS.

They paid for everything for us, meals, booze, sailboat rentals etc.

Another trip we took one old dude and his chauffeur from BOS to ACY at 9pm and went with them to all the casinos, then at 2am flew him back to BOS after he’d lost over $17,000 playing craps! I won $50 playing Black Jack, when we got back he tipped us each a $100 bill and paid the charter fee in cash!
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Old 12-17-2022, 07:31 PM
  #18  
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You'll do some FBO standby, mostly to back up other trips at that airport and in the general region.
It's rare to wait on a meeting and when we did 90% of the time we got re-tasked for something else. I always told the owners not to leave their stuff on the jet.
Keep in mind we have a 14 hour max duty day. Since you get 30 minutes to put the jet to bed you need to block in at 13:30. And unless it's changed in the five years since I lost my medical you don't get paid for going over 14 hours. Kind of an "anti A-Teamer" thing.

My biggest complaint was circadian rhythm flips. You need to be able to go to sleep very early one day, 0400 and 0500 shows are not uncommon. Then the next day you get a late show with night flying. The poor guys who are based in the Pacific Time Zone got screwed with an airline to the east coast on day 1, followed by a 0500 show on day 2, which is 0200 to their body clocks. They do have a no questions asked fatigue policy. I used it a number of times and never got any pushback.
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Old 12-18-2022, 05:50 AM
  #19  
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Sooo….with all these last minute schedule changes, what is your monthly pay based on?

Block hours actually flown, or scheduled, or days of availability, or a combination of both?

When I flew part 135 many years ago we were on a fixed weekly salary regardless of actual flight time.
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Old 12-18-2022, 06:00 AM
  #20  
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Tboned, I suggest you read the NetJets profile here in APC (https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/...tional/netjets) for a thorough answer to your question. Basically, you are paid a base salary depending on what schedule you’re on (7/7, 8/6, CC52, CC60, CC72 or CC76), plus whatever “soft” money you earn (FDP, overtime, holiday, night, etc.) When you fly, and how much you fly, can change some of your soft money, but you’ll get your base salary even if you sit in a hotel (or at home) all week.
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