Hey,

Was wondering. Are the 4 days, 20-25 hours credit routes considered a more seniour or juniour thing? If juniour, is it relatively easy for a juniour line holder to get'em?

thx
-schone

 

The higher the credit per day, the more senior it goes generally. 4 days can be held by junior pilots because #1 the vast majority of trips of built to be 4 days. 3 days are pretty common as well. In my experience locals and two days, particularly ones that pay well, go to senior in domicile pilots. (opposite of 4 days, there aren't very many of them) Exception to the rule might be SkyWest ORD where a large percentage of pilots commute. But even then, they do go kinda senior. My experience to say this comes from SkyWest and Trans States. Other airlines may be different.

 

Yes, remember that anything commutable, high paying and weekday will go senior. If you see a decent paying 4/3 day weekend trip that is not commutable you should be able to hold that as a junior pilot.

 

However, a high paying 4 day may go junior if the base is mostly commuters. It's hard to make a pairing like that commutable. And often times guys that live in base avoid 4 days for 2 days back to back or day trips.

Also, not all lines are pure with high block trips. If it's a typical 4 on 3 off line, there is going to have to be a lower block trips there somewhere. You also would run into 30/7 issues unless you had 4 days off between trips as well. And then the problem is is that the lines days off may not be constistant anymore. In other words, if you want high block 4 day trips AND all weekends off, it's tough to build.

 

I, for one, bid in this order:
1. Efficiency (high value crammed into 3 and 4 day trips). If my 4 day isn't worth at least 20 hours I trade that sucker. I prefer to do 3 and 4 day trips because my drive to the airport is about an hour so I prefer not to do that more than once a week.

2. Days off. Because my girlfriend works part time and I don't have any kids to tote around, having weekends off is not a huge deal to me. If there is something I want to do on a specific day (GO SIOUX), I'll try and get that day off. Other than that, I don't really care.

3. Good overnights. Because food is expensive on the road, it is always nice to spend a day at one of the all inclusive resorts in Mexico where you don't have to worry about spending money. Plus its nice to chill on the beach once in a while. Or if there is someone out there I want to drop in on and visit, I'll look for something there too.

If you commute you probably look for 4 day trips that start late and end early so you can commute in the day off and fly home the night you finish. If you have a hot little lady your wife doesn't know about down in Mexico, you bid for that. If you wanna go to little Jimmy's soccer game on Saturday, you bid for weekends off. There are any number of reasons guys bid what they do so you usually get at least something you want.