flyingLV

It's a system that has us home most nights instead of a hotel in another part of the country away from our families. We don't have to bother with travel days and we don't wait around at the airport wondering if we are flying or not, when I am on call I'm at home. On average I spend 7-8 nights in a hotel a month, the smaller planes spend less days in hotels.

10 Days off is our guarantee, sometimes we get more than that, but we cannot have less than 10 days without agreeing to it. The most common schedule I know is the 8/6, and with that you are off 12 days a month. I can't speak for everyone, but I would rather work 2 extra days if it meant that I spend a week a month at home more than a typical 8/6 pilot.

I think this system embraces the concept of quality of life for people who want to be home instead of in a hotel.

LLWS09R

I’ll buy the fact days off are a QOL life issue. If your company truly does want a pilot home if not flying I say that shows great management by your company. However the fact we are pilots we will be on the road a long or short period of our lives. The question I have is if they steal hotel points. Is that a direct agreement with employees in an effort to get them home or are they stealing them to lower their operating cost? Not getting a broker to use your plane a certain day of the week IMO is luck of the draw more than management QOL for employees. I concede like part 121 carriers not getting points is a direct Union contract agreement. Will your company turn down a broker request to keep you at home in exchange for hotel points?? Or as I stated is the extra days off a lack of brokerage request?

Seneca Pilot

I don't have a dog in this fight, but if the pilot isn't actually paying for the hotel how are the points the exclusive property of that pilot. If I own the company paying the bills I would argue that I should be able to use those points as I see fit. I may choose to offer them to crew as a benefit or use them to lower my costs. It is none of the pilot's business unless the pilot pays the bill.

LLWS09R

Ask the airlines.... They only award the points to the passenger flying. And your stating that 99% of company travel departments are wrong???? And your measly .00000000001 company right? I get you don’t have a dog in the fight and are not trying to get in a long debate about this. But if your company buys you food do they own you or your ********.

woods

We allow our pilots to accumulating hotel points.

For operational and financial tracking, billing and payment reasons we book hotels through select sources. Some of those booking sources allow the addition of a loyalty program and some officially don’t allow it but the hotels will often still do it if you ask the front desk at. checkin. Our pilots are welcome to add their loyalty numbers, but they have to do so at checkin. We don't manage that for them.

Our crews are home based, so they are not floating fleet road warriors living in hotels. Most of our crew on call time is spent in their home city, sleeping in their own bed. We understand hotel loyalty status is a nice benefit and are happy when we can assist our crews to obtain additional benefits like this.

Brickhut

Well, then technically, it's the owners/customers points.

It's not who pays, it's who stays. Accumulating points leads to status within the points program. It leads to free breakfast/dinner/concierge lounge visits. It leads to Room upgrades, it leads to being able to book a hotel at a property that may show "SOLD OUT" It leads to easier check in/check out. It leads to QOL

Camel Dancer

I don’t have dog in this fight either, but sounds like you either
A. Have never done 135 or
B. Work at the aforementioned company.

woods

I answered the hotel points in another post.

We have a bidding system that is very flexible for our crews and we do our best accommodate vacation requests. Because we are mainly home based we can accommodate much different scheduling blocks that floating fleets.

We have several schedules that we are open to discussing with people. Our goal is to reach. 3.5 pilots per aircraft and so that gives us flexibility with schedules, vacation etc.

Atlantic is our home FBO. We buy so much fuel from them, we have a special fuel deal with them and no points are awarded to anyone. This is a business and fuel is our biggest DOC expense.

To the forum in general I would say, there are always snarky trolls around. Guys who are habitual complainers aren't happy anywhere. They destroy moral and they are really not fun to be around. We don't want to retain them and don't try to retain them. We want to be a place you like to go to work and hopefully much better. To get there you might have to be engaged and make suggestions. We are constantly adjusting and growing. I don't necessarily know what's important to you or how we might accommodate.

Chat with our Chief Pilot. If you do you'll understand we are reasonable people, we do reasonable things and this is a good place to work.

Camel Dancer

So you allow pilots to “accumulate” points......but you book with a 3rd party vendor ie; Orbits,Travelocity,Hotels.com that DO NOT ALLOW the pilot’s to “accumulate” the points.

Does that sound accurate?

Camel Dancer

Exactly.

Well stated Sir