everyone discusses payscale, days off, upgrade times etc.

noone ever really discusses the vacation structure at regionals.

care to shed some light on your airline?

how many hours initially? 5+years? 10+years


Scenic, i think its 40 hours after 1 year.

Piedmont has a great vacation plan, 1st year you get 5 days, 2nd-? 10 days, and sernior guys get 15 or 20 days.

You get 1 vacation slot per 5 day vacation period, either the 1st-15th or 16th-30th. You put your days you have on scheduled work days, and any other touching trips with those 5 days get dropped. For example if you have vacation the 1st-15th and have two 4 day trips during that period, you put 4 of your vacation days on the first 4 day, and the next four day trip drops as well (although you only get paid for the first day). Combine this with bidding the prior month so you have a few days off at the end of the month and it is easy to get 15-18+ days off in a row.

It is complicated at first but if you know how to work the system its great.

You don't get 40 hours that I know of. If you think about it your days on reserve for example are paid at something like 3.5 - 4 hours per day. So you may get 5 days off but it may only equal 20 hours pay.

After 1 year: 1 week (Sun 0001 to Saturday 2359) paid at 4 hours /day.
After 2 years: 2 weeks
After 5 years: 3 weeks
After 15+: 4 weeks

Some regionals give you a week block of vacation and you are credited whatever time falls in your vacation period when you bid.

IE if the week of vacation you have a 4 day trip worth 28 hours, you get paid 28 hours. If you have a 3 day trip worth 16 hours, you get paid 16 hours of vacation.

Sometimes you get a long vacation where you can be off for years.

Eagle is 2 weeks per year for the first four years. 3 weeks with 5 years in.

I wasn't aware that Regional airline pilots get vacation time...hmmm...

any ideas on what some of the "majors" get?

i used to work ground for B6 and i saw the pilots PTO schedule. A 10+ year pilot gets about 180 hours off a year, thats like 2 months. Of course there are no 10+ year pilots their yet but i think a 5-10 year gets 140 hours or so.

It be nice if the vacation time were listed on the payscales page.