OK, I'm fairly clueless on this. If an airline pays $30 an hour, and guarantees 70 hours in a month, you get $2100 a month fly pay (crap!). How many hours is typical (I know, this is probably highly variable)?

If you get paid $1.80 per diem, that's paid per hour from the time you walk in the door until when? And that's paid on top of the flight pay I assume? Any other $$ to add on to this that a pilot get's paid (not counting the second job as a pizza delivery boy)?

 

You get paid per flight hour, 70 is your base, then you get paid anything you fly over 70. Per diem is on trips from check in to check out. usually doesn't pay for day trips or airport reserve. But it all depends on your contract.

 

Check in to check out....? Those are the specifics I'm looking for. As I said, clueless.

 

Your show time of a trip till you're done with the trip back at the gate. Usually it's about 350 hours if you have an average line of 75 hours.

 

An hour or 45 mins before the first flight and 15 to 30 mins after your last flight. All depends on the contract.

 

Yep, it's absolute crap. But you pretty much have it correct. Take this FWIW, but don't EVER base you financial needs on ANYTHING more than the airline's minimum monthly pay guaranty. Whether it's 70, 75, whatever.

Also, like others mentioned, the method in which airlines pay depends on the contract. One place I worked, the 1st of the month was for the first 45 hours of pay from the previous month. The 15th of the month was for everything flown past the 45 plus the previous month's per diem pay. These checks were slightly more "balanced" if you will.

Another place I've worked, the first check of the month was for 37.5 hrs of pay (half the min guaranty). The mid month was for the other 37.5 plus whatever additional flying done, plus the per diem. This results in a different style, a little check at the begining of the month and less little check mid month.

Just to keep this REAL simple. Say you are flying 4 four day trips a month, a 16 on/14 day off 4 on 3 off schedule. I KNOW, with the advent of various things combined with 117, it's NOT SO SIMPLE, bt stick with it. Say your trips are the same, noon show and 2pm releases. That would be 74 hours TAFB (time away from base) per month, 296 hours. As a senior line holder, I had 2 end commutable trips where my TAFB per month was in the 270's. I ALSO had reserve months were I was used every day, and had TAFB that pressed 350-375 hours. Both places I've worked, that per diem was calculated from a 1 hour prior to go time report, and a block in + 15 mins for a trip finish.

Now, if your last day you're running late, naturally you'll get more, till the time you finish for the day. In this example, the per diem is NON-TAXED as your rest periods occur in other than your domicile. If you are doing "day trips", "locals", "turns", or whatever they're called at insert airline here, that per diem is taxed. So if you're showing up 6 am, finishing in the afternoon and going back home/to a crashpad, that 8-10-12 hours is taxed.

And, as mentioned, some airlines don't pay per diem for an airport standby period, some do. Depends on the contract.

 

Just to ballpark your yearly earnings (flight pay + per diem) you can take your hourly rate x 1,000 and you'll be pretty close.

 

I've found that as a reserve I make slightly less than my hourly rate x 1,000, and as a lineholder I make slightly more. It's a good ballpark figure but if you know average reserve times for your base you can make an even better estimate.

Year 1 on reserve at $22/hour I made 20k. Year 2 as a lineholder at $31/hour I made 35k.

 

Great info, thanks!

 

Another thing..if you're hung up about the pay, and if you're fairly young AND single, move to your base...

Much more flexibility in trip bidding, adding a day trip, picking up pieces of someone else's trip etc...

I commuted to a regional for 2 years...I was able to make it work financially but it sucked worrying about commutable trips, report times etc.. Moved to base for the next 2 years and was able to do any length of trip, pick up open time, add and drop stuff etc...

Life at a regional sucks, but much less "sucky" if ya don't have to add in a commute on top of everything else that sucks.