best travel benefits...
 

APC does a great job with most of the stuff but I'm looking to find out which regionals have what travel benefits for you and your family.

If by best you mean which ones aren't the worst...

Anyone with Delta benefits seem to be marginally happy until you get bumped by a retired gate agents step son.

Haha
Filler

The company that pays you enough to afford a purchased ticket for you and your family.

/thread

Skywest has benefits on United, Delta, American and Alaska. American and Alaska are base specific. All CRJ pilots get United and Delta. E175 pilots only get United but Delta flying is coming this summer.

I think Skywest is the only carrier where you can potentially have benefits on 3 majors at the same time.

Disclaimer: American and United benefits kind of suck for your family members due to segment fees and inability to list for first class on American. Delta is the best benefit.

That!! ^^^^.


But all that aside, I'd have to say the American wholly owned regionals do. But, they also have some of the lowest pay and worst QOL too. You could go make more at almost any other regional and just pay for tickets.

I agree on the current pay at the AA wholly owned regionals. However qol at PSA is pretty good for line holders.

True, I can't speak for psa and Piedmont QOL, but for QOL at envoy...LOL.

You can't make that much more. I've flown international first class multiple times with my AA wholly owned benefits. That's worth thousands of dollars. I'm not saying it's better than a higher pay rate, but saying any regional pilot can just pony up for tickets because of an extra $5/hr is silly.

To the OP, where do you live? AA benefits are great, but if you live at a United or Delta hub, those might work better for you. The less legs you have to fly, the better chance you have if getting on.


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The AA wholly owned are great mainly because you are on the same priority as AA employees. AA along with One World being the largest out there, you can practically go anywhere in the world. I've never had a major problem flying around with a family of three even during the holidays, summer, and spring break. I do however have to get a little creative though during peak travel. First is going to be free come summer.

Family members of AA/ any of the WO's can list first/business class on AA.... not sure where you got your info. Theres a fee right now ($10-20), but starting June 1st, no fees for any class cabin.

He was referring to non-WO carries. They are not allowed to list/travel in F or J class. And yes, this summer non-rev travel for all AAG employees (AA, Envoy, PSA and PDT) will be free regardless of class of service and there is no yearly fee.

The best travel benefits are at NetJets.... That 1 week of vacation means 3 straight weeks off, all those airline miles and hotel stays are your rewards points that get you a free "revenue passenger" not standby round trip for your family and a free week in (a lot nicer hotel than the regionals stay at) the hotel of your choice. Throw in the savings bonds for the fuel points and you have some beer money while you lounge at the pool.

AA may be the largest airline, but their international network outside of Latin America is the weakest out of the big 3 major airlines. One world is also the smallest of the big 3 airline alliances.

My question is, realistically, with load factors being as high as they are now with record profits, how hard is it to non-rev because the seats always seem to be full these days?

Depends completely on where you want to go, and when you want to go there. In January, non-rev travel is cake. Loads from the north east to the UK are light right now on AA, as well as to florida and the caribbean. Try in 2 weeks, and it'll be a completely different story.

Non-Reving seems to be easy for me right after the holidays. I guess everyone uses their vacation time around christmas, and tends to stay home during January.

I agree with Bluetaildragger, I find January, February, May and October to be easy non-reving months. Never had an issue. The summer and holidays can be rough tho. In march and april it all depends are where your going. NE to Florida or the Caribbean can be hard, but transcons aren't so bad.

It depends where you go, how smart you are, and how flexible you are. You will get people who have are none of the above and will complain non-stop how useless non-rev travel is and if they want to get anywhere, they just buy a ticket.

In 2015 alone my wife and I: went to Grenada, Jamaica, Berlin (twice), Japan, Australia, Beijing/Shanghai, and Chiangmai Thailand. And then a handful of domestic stops that I wont bother listing. This year we have south america plans but Zika might steer us more to Asia again.

The next thing people usually complain about is that airfare is only part of the cost that everything else costs too. Well, duh. My wife and I are backpackers so we have no problem staying in hostels, eating street vendor food (Thailand...dear god so much delicious food), taking trains, and finding the "Free" activities which every city we have gone to has more than enough of. Does it cost money to travel? Sure. But when you can travel literally anywhere in the world, it will incur some costs.

I've said it before: There are usually 2 camps with non-rev travel: People who love it or people who hate it. And since we are talking about pilots, they will complain to no end.

Seriously so true, I go all over the place with airline bennies. I get to see free i would see other wise, and the girlfriend gets to go see her family when she wouldn't be able to other wise. I don't get why people complain so much. It's free! Also I went to Hawaii four times in one year. How can you beat that

You could give a pilot $10,000 and without fail someone would complain.

As for travel, some people just don't have the know-how, flexibility, or temperament to nonrev. Indeed, it is not for everyone. Certain personalities just dont work well with the "may not get on" mentality. Some people have gotten burned and vow to never travel again. These are the people who are clueless about non-rev and when they click "create listing" assume they are booking seats in the back. They probably made no back up plans, bought extra ZED tickets, or watched the loads on a particular market.

Every transoceanic flight I've done I've gotten first or business class. 14 hour flight to asia sitting in flagship first class on a 777 is a pretty good way to pass the time - especially when we sat on the ground at ORD for 2 hours waiting to be deiced. Why yes, I'll have another cocktail.

My brother is starting a family out in DC and my parents (sadly, just my dad now) who were both retired were going out there almost every week. ORD-DCA is a super easy non-rev for retired people like my parents. They would not be able to do that nearly as often if they didnt have these travel benefits.

non-rev across the pond, codeshares, etc.
 

2 not-so-young pilots talking in the FBO today, we are thinking about giving airlines a try. We have children abroad, so this is a big QOL item. A few non-rev questions please:

For Endeavor, are you guys 1 step below Delta mainline in terms of priority? Can you or your family list First/Business class? No fee?

For AAG WO, are PDT, PSA, and Envoy really on the same priority as AA mainline?

If your parent airline codeshares on a foreign partner's metal, do you get to list on that flight exactly as if it were a Delta/AA flight? (for example KLM from Amsterdam, or Finnair from Helsinki)
First/Business class no problem?
or is ZED fare the only/best way to get on that metal?

As a line pilot, can you jumpseat at the end of a work trip, to go across the Atlantic for your 3 days off (just to have a couple of meals with family :), if you handle rest responsibly) then js back to stateside for the start of your next work trip?
Would management give you a hard time? (If you have 121 management background, please share your take on this.)

Does your airline allow divorced children (living with his ex) as a pilot's non-rev children?

Is non-rev really that much worse at non-WO regionals? (e.g. Compass, Republic, SkyWest)
Does any non-WO allow non-rev in mainline First/Business class? How much is out of pocket cost? anything else?

Thanks in advance!

Bump.

Filler

As wholly owned pilots, yes, we are the same priority as mainline. Priority is based on time of check-in. The only spot where you can get bumped is from the JUMPSEAT by a pilot on their own metal. The back seat goes to the guy/gal who checked in first. You and your SO also get 6 legs of D1's each (vacation passes), which is the same number mainline gets. Plus 16 D3's (buddy passes) which have a higher priority than non-wholly owned benefits. So my wife's sister can bump an offline traveler. We have some problems with our compensation. Travel benefits ain't one of them.
Edit: I know I didn't answer all questions, some of those are outside my experience.

Endeavor non-rev is one step below Delta pilots and their family's but above all other Delta Connection regionals. They also have access to Delta's load plans so they can game plan their travel a little better. During training, as long as you have at least two days off in a row, Endeavor will positive space you on Delta anywhere you want to go. I know people that went home to Florida every weekend during training. That's huge for people that have families.

Speaking Endeavor:
Yes you are right behind Delta active and retired in priority, above all other nonrev. Yes that includes first/business at no extra cost (there is a $50 fee annually to have any pass travel per employee, no matter how many dependents are involved) And a bonus for international, Delta won't upgrade the frequent fliers for free so there is a much better chance of getting that first class seat... domestic between hubs, well I've been number 86 on the upgrade list on an A319....
As for family traveling on KLM or Virgin Atlantic ect. it's going to be zed fares. You can't (even Delta employees) just hop on a foreign carrier.
For jumpseating overseas, you can't ride the jumpseat on anyone else's plane (TSA rules) you can ride in back though. And as for what you do on your own time, management does not care as long as you show up on time for your next assignment. (and don't make the news for a bad reason)
Divorced children? Are they YOUR kids legally? If it's your kid, you didn't divorce the kid just the wife, if it was a step child that you never legally adopted then you probably out of luck. There is an age limit I believe though.
Thankfully I have not had to commute much in my career but it's doable (much more so after getting off reserve) if you are willing to be flexible.