Could somebody explain to me the Trip Rig/Duty Rig situation? In comparing airline compensation packages I constantly see these and honestly do not know what they mean.

Trip rig, you'll often see numbers ranging in the 3's (3.45, 3.5, 3.75), etc. What this means is, for every 3.X hour away from base, the pilot will be paid 1 hour. Usually only applies to multi day trips. Say you have a 4 day trip, report day 1 ar 12:00, finish day 4 at 12:00. TAFB (time away from base) is 72 hours. On a 3.5:1 TRIP RIG 72 hours/3.5, the pilot will credit 20.57 hours of pay.

Duty rig. This is what a pilot will get paid for on a duty hour basis. Usually it's a 1:2, 1 hour pay credit for every 2 hours on duty. Although some may be in the high 1:1.X range. Have a 10 hour duty day? You'll receive 5 hours pay credit. Some airlines also have a min pay credit per day, or duty day depending.

Now, how this all ties in, is how much a pilot will get paid when they go to work. The pay credit for a trip is usually THE HIGHER OF the trip rig, the duty rig, or the "hard" time flown on the trip.

Example to the above, show at noon, fly 5 hours. Days 2-3 are 6 hours of actual flying, day 4 is 5 hours. The "hard" time is 22 hours, which would EXCEED the 1:3.5 rig. KEEPING IT REAL SIMPLE; min guaranty is 75 hours, pilot flies 4 of the above trips a month, he'll get paid 88 hours.

Now, let's go with it being a low flight time trip, say 3 hours day 1, 4 hours day 2-3, and 3 hours day 4. 14 hours "hard" time. The pilot would receive the 20.57 credit for the trip. AGAIN, KEEPING IT REAL SIMPLE. Pilot flies 4 of these low time trips a month. Min guaranty is 75 hours, pilot will get paid 82.3-ish hours. But ONLY flew 56 hours for the month.

A duty rig helps to protect a pilots pay for days with excessive sit times, and usually ONLY applies to the SCHEDULED DUTY DAY, USUALLY. Company wants to fly you very little but make you sit? They'll pay you. On an 11 hour duty day that may only have 4.5 hours scheduled flying, you'd get 5.5 hours of pay on a 1:2 duty rig.

Most airlines have contractual language that ties in ALL these so the pilot gets paid the HIGHER of all the breakdowns.

That's a very quick explanation of how they work. NOT all airlines are the same, and there can ALWAYS be exceptions.

For a while, DAL has a min duty day, but you HAD TO BE ON DUTY TO GET IT. What this means is, if you flew, had a calendar day layover, then flew, you wouldn't receive the min day since you weren't on duty that day. It went away. I believe that JetBlue still has it. 5 hours a day average credit, PER ACTUAL DUTY DAY.

When the airline has the above rigs, and the pilot picks up flight time on days off (non premium, whatever) it can be easy to credit over 100 hours without flying anywhere near it. AGAIN, non premium pickups, etc.

Some guys are gonna chime with "well, at my airline that's not how it works". That's fine, don't know, don't are......

What I posted above is simply HOW they work, NOT how each pilot at each airline gets paid. Circles back around to exceptions, contractual language, etc, etc, annnnnnnd etc....

Thanks! This really helps a ton.