Working the System
 

I have been reading about some guys pulling 50-60k on 2nd year FO pay and was curious how? So I got the idea, how bout we share with each other on schemes, err techniques to squeeze more pay out of everyones ridiculously low pay. I mean thats what these forums are about helping each other out right. So if you know some magic please share. Saying who you work for would be helpful since contracts are different but some work across the board.

Thanks in advance guys.

Like you said, it depends where you work and how stupid your crew schedulers are, but here is a little something that has worked for a very senior FO (10 years):

Guy bids #1, so he bids a bunch of 2 day trips. He picks up a trip from Open Time (1.5 pay) that will go into his scheduled trip, so scheduling ends up displacing him off his original trip, because they are excited they have a trip covered, but don't think ahead (Pay protected, so he gets displacement pay for his scheduled trip he didn't fly). He does that for the entire month, and usually ends up crediting between 100-140 hrs., but usually 30-50 hrs. are at 1.5 pay. He makes a nice junk of change:D

My wonderful airline pays a whopping 50 dollar bonus for meeting A14 expectations. I find it much easier to push 7 early, and set brake 13 late from scheduled to pick up 20 minutes on each flight. Multiply that times at least four legs a day and I always end up with at least one extra hour of pay over schedule per day. Works out much better then their 50 dollar quarterly bonus program.

Lately, I have given up the 7 minutes on the front end, when I discovered our managers are getting bonus's for "on time" departures. Now, the brake gets dropped one minute late on every leg while we discuss a potential MX issue or other relevant safety related topic...

I'm not providing a bonus for the managers at our expense.

I wish we could do that. We can't pick up OT if it will conflict, or cause an illegality. If we could pick up stuff, and keep getting stuff removed do to conflicts we'd all be rich? Which airline does it this way?

Hard to make that kind of coin at any regional without doing a lot of extra flying.

Living in domicile allows one to pick up a LOT of extra flying, play more games with the schedule, "help" the company out and make premium pay, etc.

Yeah, assuming there is Open Time. Not so much lately...:rolleyes:

Great Thread! Just trying to figure out why we dont discuss this more often!!

One of my favorite from an ex senior F/O, now junior CA:

F/O is ready to upgrade to CA (or change equipment). He knows roughly when he could be awarded training so he puts a week of vacation in the middle of the potential training block. Bids a very low time line. Gets awarded training and the training department calls him and says "There is a conflict with your training and vacation, would you like to move the training date or move your vacation?" He says "I'll call you back tomorrow and let you know." In the mean time, he picks up maximum amount of OT for the upcoming month, then calls the training department and says "Ill move the vacation and start training ASAP." So he goes to training a week or so later and is pay protected for all of that OT, plus his line for that month, yet barely flew any of it! ;)

I Suggest Only Picking Up Advertised Flying If Your Airline Is Furloughing Guys........... :)

Management nickel-and-dimes us, we nickel-and-dime them. Funny when you think about it. Two wrongs. :cool:

I had a CA once set the brake 1 minute late on the last leg of our night. He did this so we would get reduce rest. One minute late results in reduced rest. Scheduling calls and gives us a new report time..... 1 minute later.

understanding how to use vacation is essential too. if you are ever on vacation on a day off, then you either 1) screwed up 2) have a bad vacation section in your contract 3) had to because of uncontrollable circumstances or 4) simply dont understand how to maximize vacation time.

i got a feeling that number 4 is often the case.

for AE... to keep it simple...

Currently, we are allowed to borrow up to 6 individual days of vacation from next year's vacation blocks. We call them PVDs. (Paid Vacation Days) If you have 2 blocks of vacation (each a 7 day block), you want to borrow 6 PVDs so that you are left with 2 blocks of vacation that are 4 day blocks. We usually work 4 on 3 off, so if you ever have a 5+ day block of vacation, chances are, you will be on VC on an off day. (WASTE!)

The next art is maximizing the PVD.
The best way to do this is to put the PVD on a work day that has an overnight, and doesnt come back to base the next day. That way, both days are knocked out (and pay protected!) using only 1 PVD!

Get creative guys! Management does, so we need to also.