Minimum guarantee?
 

So i keep seeing airlines saying that they have a monthly guarantee of 85,75, or whatever amount of credit hours per month. However, that equates to over 1000 hours per year. I thought part 121 you can only fly a maximum of 1000 hours per year?

What you get paid and what you actually fly are two different things. It's all in the contract (or lack thereof).

Can you explain plz? If an airline guarantees 75 hours minimum per month, what does that mean? How much do you have to fly? How much can you fly?

You are guaranteed a minimum of of 75 hours of pay. If your flying for the month credits less than that, you get 75 hours. If your flying for the month credits more than that...say 85 hours....then you get paid 85 hours.

There are quite a few ways in which you can get paid more hours than you fly. It's called "soft pay". Different airlines have different ways of doing it. As a result, very few pilots end up with the legal maximum of flight time even though their pay credits are higher.

You have to fly as much as they tell you to. You will get paid at least 75 hours, regardless of how much you actually fly. Many majors have a max monthly credit (unless you volunteer for more) but few or zero regionals have a max.

Credit and block are not the same. The FAR 117 limits apply to block, not credit. So activities like training and deadhead will pay credit but are not block.

Also trip rigs specify that for a certain amount of time away from base, and on duty daily, you will get paid a certain amount regardless of how much you actually fly.

All airlines *should* pay you for cancelled flights...if you you stumble on one which doesn't, run away fast.

It totally depends on company work rules, base, seniority, how they build the trips, etc. At my company, they have a minimum daily guarantee of 4:12. So if you do a two day trip, for example, where the first day you fly just one hour and the second day you fly 5 hours, you will get 4:12 pay for day one and 5 hours of pay for day 2, to simplify things. We also get paid for deadheads, which is when you ride in the back of a plane when they need to reposition the crew. We get paid for training, and holidays, and other things and it's all in the work rules. Every airline has their pay rules which vary from company to company. So just looking at the hourly pay rate is only one part of the equation.

For every 100 hours that I fly, I expect to get paid just over 130. That has been my running average for the last 3 years.

The extra 30 hours comes from vacation, under-blocking, cancellation pay, displacement pay, training pay, dead heads, sick time, and scheduled day off/critical pay.

Who's at 85 MMG? Can I have the jobs page link please.

Should also be noted that you can be credited less than 75 in some cases.

So how many hours does a pilot usually get paid in a month? And how much will they actually fly?

Pretty complex question. At my airline a senior FO in dtw could bid and get 95 hours and have them all bought off because their captain is an IOE Captain, then if he wanted to run up the score, pick up everything he could at 200% in the month and rack up 180 hrs.

A junior CA on reserve may fly 2 hours in a month and credit 75 if he doesn't drop.

Some airlines are better than others. Endeavor has strong soft pay, so if you were looking at the norm, probably 80hrs for every 60 hrs flown on the 200 and the 900 probaly has 65 hours flown for same credit. The 200 is fairly inefficient (just fact available to view in every monthly bid package) and you'll see some 2 leggers for 2.5 credit hours that'll credit 4 after the day is done.

Every pilot group has a different contract or no contract, and that changes what you'll see in you credit hour accumulation.

First two terms you need to know:
Credit - How many hours you are paid for working (doesn't mean you are actually present, just that you "credit" X amount of hours for pay.

Block - How many hours you fly. Starts from door closing/parking brake reset and goes until door opens at the arrival gate. Note, block can be a lot more than actual flying if you have a delayed take off, a long taxi, etc.

Min guarantee is the minimum you will get paid monthly. Think of it as a "salary" type pay. If a company's min guarantee is 75 (they vary by company), then whether you work (credit) zero hours or 74.9 hours, you will get paid 75 X hourly rate.

So if your company schedules you to credit 73 hours in a month, you will get paid at least 75. However, let's say that due to ATC delays, flight delays, WX, whatever... you are actually present at work for more than those 73. Let's assume you actually WORKED 80 hours. Now you will get paid for 80 instead of 75.

And then there's over time, or premium pay. Let's say you only worked the 73 hours scheduled above by the company, but there was open time that you picked up at 150% (the company needed you to work more, and you volunteered to). Now if you credit 5 hours on those days you picked up, you will get 75 X hourly rate (for scheduled 73 hours), as well as 5 X 1.5 = 7.5 X hourly rate on top of your min guarantee.

Hope this helps it make more sense.

Depends on the company and what you bid. Typically, you fly less on reserve (unless the company is really understaffed).

As you are more senior, you can bid for better trips that pay more. Instead of an 18 hour 4 day trip, you can get a 24 hour 4 day trip. Get paid 6 more hours for the same amount of time at work.

I SAP my schedule to make it whatever I want that month. In the summer, I work very little. Same around the holidays. Maybe 65-70 hours with 18-19 days off. In the winter, I get 12 days off and credit over 100.

In the end, I think I flew 800 hours and got paid about 1100.