Life as a junior NB CA
 

Question for the masses. Anyone out there a junior 737 or 320 captain? Somewhere around the G-line in EWR. I'm trying to get an idea of what kind of coin people are actually making (say, earnings YTD?) as compared to what a WB FO does. Also, how many days of work (or used days on reserve.. days you have to do FSB or actually fly).

I'm not going to lie, life has been pretty good on the WB FO side of things, but I might be looking to change things up and actually start flying some more.

You would be giving up a bunch QOL-wise to gain very small increase in pay. I remember when I thought a $40 hourly raise would be life changing. These days, I'd like to take a vacation when my kids are out of school and bid to be off when I need the time off. The taxman is gonna take such a large bite out of that raise...I'm not sure you would net more than 1500 difference each month.

Don't know about junior captain, but talked a to a very senior 737 FO last week who made "as much as a captain averaging 83 hours a month" in 2016. If you're very senior you can get shorter PBS trips that are easily pickup-able so he advertises them all and then gets SRM or straight picks up trips with lots of soft time. He's a commuter but lives in Utah so he works 3 or 4 domiciles. If you want "coin" reserve captain may not be the best route.

That means he's getting 120 hours of credit per month. As a (sometimes) reserve Captain, I usually get between 80-82 hours of pay on reserve averaging 22-24 days off per month. I'd rather do that than kill myself flying every day.

As a senior reserve, you get weekends off and your first choice of assignments. I always pick up afternoon short calls. I usually don't get used, so the add pay starts piling up. There is also occasional VDO opportunities.

And you always get to fly with your favorite Captain ;)

22-24 days off? So I assume you are counting unused reserve days as days off. So you work 6-8 days a month for 80-82 hours of pay? That is not possible unless you get a VDO assignment every month. If that's the case, good job. Which fleet are you on?

That's kind of what I was looking at. I'm about 70% on the 777FO list and do get decent days off and have managed to make close to 100hrs a few months this year (with the others being in the 80s). Trying to decide if it's worth moving to the left seat to fly with my favorite captain for a couple years or just hang out and enjoy the WB life.

I'll give you a simple answer. If you are a commuter don't do it. If you live in base you'll work less and make at least the same amount of $.

I get the hours by building up unused short calls.

Yes, I am counting my unused SC's as days off since I don't actually go to work.

Last time I was on reserve, I had 8 unused SC's and a couple hours of add pay for showing up quickly on one of the days I actually got used. That's 81 hours of pay for working very little.

I also had an 80 hour month where I never touched a plane.

This only works if you live in base (obviously).

No f'ing way.. commuting to reserve is summoning two out of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The others being the 737 and EWR.