There’s a ton of ways to skin the cat, but my technique as a junior lineholder was to work premium trips and have them drop my normal trips with pay. They’re short enough on the CRJ they’ll go for it most times, and once you get a reputation of helping them out with it, they’ll start coming to you with that offer. It’s a single man’s game, but I never had an issue getting 12-13 days off while still hitting 5 digits each month on that jet. There was no premium pay in 2020 really, but the epic schedule instabilities still allowed someone with a little bit of flexibility to stack some serious cash, especially with all of the cancellations in March/April/May.

can’t do it on my current jet, but at least my hourly rate is better and the air conditioning works… and I’m secretly enjoying sitting reserve in base.

Senior CRJ guys don’t need to play as hard, their hourly rate plus soft pay and bonuses is enough to get them to that marker unless they post their trips.

At 5-6 year crj pay, you’d have to average 117 credit hours a month to make 10k a month. If you could, good for you. In my 7.5 years at OO 117 hours was possible here and there, but unsustainable for a line guy month to month. The actual block vs credit made it incredibly difficult to pad the soft time. A lot has changed if they’re willing to drop with pay protection and pay premium on top?

Great example of a non-union shop.

one guy cuts a side deal for super premium pay.

not faulting you… you play the game, they make the rules.

This is exactly the same way they do it at Endeavor and at Envoy. So that has nothing to do with being non union...

You should see my July month, 133h of pay. And still spent a week of vacation...

You can't pick up OT on dropped days at Envoy, just FYI.
Well, you can't really drop anything there anyway, so moot point. But no, that is not how it is done at Envoy.

Chimp childs must be having a heart attack. So they let you drop with pay and pay premium on top, so long it helps them out? The only time I remember them paying 200% was 2011-2012, so long it was on your days off.

more accurately then, you would say it’s POSSIBLE to clear $150k. Saying they EASILY clear $150k is not at all what you have just described.

I made 130k on 3rd year pay as a CRJ CA without “gaming” the system (breaking guarantee on reserve did it). I’ll serve just over a full year on the ERJ before I move on, but it will be closer to 110k on 5th year pay. But that’s with smaller bonus’s due to COVID and 2 months on training pay when I transitioned.

I don’t game the system, I have a life outside of work. For peace of mind I have to spend time with friends, family, and a girlfriend who’d I’d like to marry sometime soon. So QOL is substantially more important than making 150k at a regional dogging it, which I know can be done at Skywest.

I drop penalty laps on trips which takes away from overal monthly credit, still break 6 figs. The regional level is for grabbing turbine time and trying to move on up, but making over 100k and having a great QOL has been great. I’ll certainly cherish my time at OO.

You're not considering bonuses into that though, but yes 117 credit a month is pretty easy to achieve considering I've had PBS lines that award 105 credit and 15 off in the past. It's all about being in the left seat of the CRJ in the right base. You'll never see that kind of opportunity in SLC, but in ORD or some of the other bases where they sometimes go months without a single reserve captain and they don't have any sim bubbas on hand to step in? it's easy.

Nah, this isn't a non-union thing. I know guys at union shops in all levels of the industry doing the exact same thing.

nicely done.

Envoy is a special place that somehow still manages to recruit pilots after forcing bankruptcy contracts upon them for decade long terms. It's mystifying.

It's pretty easy to clear $150k. Possible to do much more if you run yourself down to part 117 mins.

This. OO is def a place where you get your PIC time and bounce, but you can make some good cash whilst doing it. Or you can go full lifer mode, spend 5-6 years in the right seat posting your good trips for the hour-hungry FOs, then move to the left seat, and have a decent QOL while still making an ok wage.