FTv3

Probably referring to End of year 2022 Salary thread. Theres’s some LCC, SWA, and ACMI guys posting big numbers with low block hours and days away from home. Gaming the system in one way or another. Outliers, not the average.

Also note: everyone is dealing with the Optimizer. None of this recent arse pain is unique to Brown.

C2078

I can’t even close to imagine a 30 year career here with these schedules. Maybe bypassing a long time or finding a very unique niche might make it somewhat palatable, but it is otherwise brutal.

We aren’t working more than the average Legacy/LCC guy, it is the circadian flips and the 10am to 8-9am duty days that really screw with you. The trips that have duty days that start 8-9pm and end 4-5am, those are a piece of cake, in bed by the time the sun comes up (if you are a good day sleeper, I can sleep pretty much anytime, anywhere &#128556. But flying the leg when the sun is in your face, oh boy, that is brutal.

Examples of a niche… living in base and doing either afternoon or morning turns, bidding reserve in base, Z europe trips, etc. It can be very palatable. But there are few niche opportunities like this based on seniority. I am very surprised more people here don’t bypass longer. Our Captain upgrade is running around 60% seniority, historically hasn’t changed much, whereas the airline folks on average run much more junior. Most people say might as well take it as schedules suck bad for everyone anyways.

FTv3

Schedules are probably only a big concern for the junior bypassers. Longterm bypassers are often guys sitting in the ultra koosh niches (eg. Bid with training captain and get displaced constantly), or their spouses work and earn a decent income, or they are the gamers who make CPT pay from R seat. Also, FO pay is strong enough here that there isn’t as much urge to upgrade early. At some point though, bypassers are leaving a lot of money on the table. Company’s got you 14/28 - One can do that at $200-something per hour or $300 something.

While I sympathize with your concerns, our fatigue call-in rate doesn’t indicate a serious problem with our schedules. Get the mission done/fear of repercussions > safety First culture. IMHO

C2078

Just because our fatigue rate is low doesn’t mean there is not a latent, serious problem. It is going to rear it’s ugly head at some point, and when it does, not if, the company will point the finger at us by saying we should have done better self analyzing our condition. We have a zero penalty fatigue policy, only a sick bank debit in the worst case, yet many people still don’t use this provision for fear of retaliation or fear of getting “on the radar”.

tnkrdrvr

My perspective is similar in many ways to FTV3. If you can worm your way into a good niche, this job is amazing. However, for junior commuters, it can be pretty rough. The only way I could survive that scenario would be to maximize OCV benefit and lean into using fatigue calls when necessary. To me, this job pretty strongly incentivizes junior guys to live in domicile. Once you have the seniority to hold some commuter good deals then move to where you want to live. I personally have figured out a pretty sweet deal that results in lots of family time and minimal back side of the clock flying, but it requires living in domicile.

APCbot

If you guys have a rough schedule... I should already be dead at Kalitta.

tnkrdrvr

A lot of guys who come to Brown from Kalitta, Atlas, and other ACMIs often comment that, while we do better financially and have more days off, we do a lot more flying on our work days. I’ve never seen a truly objective breakdown of the respective flying, but that is definitely a perception out there.

APCbot

I'm not trying to be rude, when was the last time your 12 month hit 900+ hours?

mwf008

Not true in my experience. Even with our current optimized schedules I worked way harder while at Kalitta.

APCbot

That's what I've heard from my friends who have made the switch as well.