American Eagle- More hours than minimum??
 

I need to make a decision on going to work for AE. Can someone give me the straight info on availability of extra flight hours over the guaranteed 75 for reserve? I can't pay my family bills with the minimum! No sense taking a job to go in the hole.

keep in mind that in addition to the minimum guarantee you are also making per diem for every hour you are away from base on a trip... that dollar-and-change per hour really starts to add up... if money is an issue than go somewhere else other than the airlines... because all the regionals (and the majors) have crappy pay scales right now...

There are opportunities to add overtime flying to your paycheck, but like Av8tion said, it is really ridiculous pay across the board at regional airlines. Especially first year pay. I dont know if it is possible, but some sacrifice in personal spending and reducing bills might be the best way to make it through the first year at any regional. ALso consider a part time job outside of the regionals to make extra cash. I used to be a waiter for the first few years!

When you are on first year FO pay, it really doesnt make much sense to pick up a 4hour day trip for OT on your day off. At $25/hr youll make $120 before taxes(OT is paid at a 120% rate). Per diem on day trips is taxable, so that really wont add up to much more than $5-10. Being a waiter at a cheesy chain restaurant you can pull in 100-150 easily, and much more if you work a double shift at a nicer place.

I don't work for Eagle, but have been on reserve for a long time at two different airlines. You will rarely break guarantee. Do not count on breaking guarantee to pay your bills. You can usually count on per diem pretty much paying for your taxes each check. My net and gross amounts have historically been right around the same number when you add in the per diem on the net side of the equation.

At Eagle any OT goes on top of your reserve guarantee. RSV guar is 75hrs.

I wouldn't go anywhere where you cant afford to live on the minimum pay. you never know what is going to happen (lots of pilots took out 100k in loans thinking they would be captains in 2 years have now sat at the bottom of the fo reserve list for over 3).

So let me get this straight. Even on reserve you can just pick up trips in open time? Whats the point of being on reserve then?

Reserves at most places can only pick stuff up on their days off, not when they are on call.

You can only pick up trips on your days off.

I was hired a few years ago during a similar hiring cycle. I spent about 5 months on reserve, during which I made about the same as during training- $2000/mo. My year-to-date pay for the subsequent years has been: 37,300; 36,310; and 41,200. I am on the lowest payrate aircraft (t-prop).

There is a tremendous difference between reserve QOL and pay and that of a lineholder. It is really night and day. For example just in terms of days off- 11 on reserve and say 13 with a bottom line- if you are a lineholder you can pick up a 2-day trip on those 2 days you would have been on reserve and maybe make 8 hrs pay. At first year pay times 1.2 for OT that becomes about $250 per month or $3000 per year difference for working the same number of days as you would on reserve.

The other big help as someone mentioned before is per diem. With a time away from base of 250 hours per month as an average times $1.80 per hour you will make $450 per month ($5400 per year) of non-taxed income versus on reserve you will only get the time you sit at the airport or get a trip. Some will argue per diem is not really income but at the end of the month its money in your bank account so I count it.

Many lines have 15, 16 or more days off, and after the first year the payrate for the jets is much higher than props. And OT will be 1.2 times your payrate so a second-year jet FO is making $41 per hour for example for OT. It really is not that hard to make over $40,000 a year and still maintain some QOL. And as time goes on and your seniority improves it gets easier and easier.

If flying is something you want to do as a career now is the time to get hired somewhere (even at Eagle). The industry may be moving back in the right direction and the sooner you can get in the door (and off reserve) the better. Good luck.

You're worried and asking before you're even hired. This should tweak your senses and judgement.

Why would you want a job where you have to work on your days off to pay the bills? What is the point of having a family if you never see them?

Find a job that pays your bills and still allows you to be home.

Is it a long wait to get an LAX base?

you cannot go below 8(or 9 I cannot recall)days off per month and you only get 11 on reserve. that said, you can try to go beyond 75 hrs by working your tail off but you will be hating life for sure. Staffing looks to be so bad that you will certainly be able to pick up open time but it cannot start before or end later than published times so as not to interfere with your reserve days. no easy answer. many FO's have had to mow grass or use other skills or marry the right person to feed the aviation habit. not to be a downer but suppose aviation gets hit with another 9/11 type event or some other carrier specific event that could force you to suck it up and start from scratch. are you gutsy enough to get in? I am not offering this to be sarcastic, believe me. it happened to me and the war stories, though exciting make me doubt the wisdom of putting it all on the roulette wheel we call a pilot career.

Junior FO currently is a 10/07 DOH, but Eagle just announced some pretty significant expansion in LAX so that might improve.

Unless someone was still really young, say 23-25, I could not reconmend anyone going to the regionals unless you have no bills or a sugar mama...

I was lucky and got in at 22 and had 6000+ hrs before I was 30, which made it easier to move on to other better paying jobs. Made just enough for beer money and some food. But I was still 7 years away from kids, marriage, mortgages etc....If you have a family,especially with kids, think really hard about it..

There are just too many negatives that can happen that will derail your plans of better pay in the future. At which point you may be faced with the thought of having to start over again at another regional, unless a company like Netjets is hiring, but it appears that safety net has a hole in it also.

^^ What he said. There's no way of knowing with any degree of certainty how long you'll be on reserve but you can bet on at least a year unless you're willing to commute to SJU. Take it from a guy who's been on reserve at Eagle for a couple years now, it's possible to break guarantee but it's not common and it's not something you have much control over. You can pretty much forget it in the winter.

Picking up OT is an option but as others have said, it's tough on reserve and even tougher if you commute. The most you could pull off would probably be one 2 day or maybe a 3 day trip per month if you swap your days off around (which can be impossible in and of itself), you're lucky and the stars are aligned. That said, staffing is typically fatter during the winter months and OT is harder to come across then if it's not blocked completely.

OT is hard to pick up and we never fly our guarantee - and OT is usually not unblocked for FO's...we have too many on RSV right now.

Yea, just think. You could stay with the regionals for 3-4 years and have tons of guys under you on the seniorty list. Then you get tired of that kind of flying and go to NetJets. After 18 months at NetJets you find yourself on the Furlough list there wishing that you never left the regional flying.

Life is not always "Greener" on the other side.

Per Diem pay is NOT non-taxable. It is not withheld if the sequence contains an out of base overnight - this is why you may have 2 colums in your end of month stub: TAFB W (withheld) & TAFB NW (not-withheld). Come tax time you have to report the total per diem you rec'd and you can either itemize receipts for trip expenses or use the GSA standard rates and subtract your expenses from your per diem payments to get the taxable amount.

it's green where you are, just need to change your perspective! :)

(just my opinion)

meeko...did you get your upgrade?

good one, april fool's is over!

lol....... :D