Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Monthly bidding is almost here!

Each month around the 20th I bid for the next month schedule. Since I am the most junior pilot in my status...it's more of a formality as I normally get what's left over.

This month I got the airport standby line I wanted. The afternoon airport standby line this month has partial weekends off (Thursday thru Saturday +Sunday until 2PM). Not bad all things considered. The afternoon standby shift consist of 3 days of airport standby followed by one day of regular reserve. The last day of reserve is ideally a day at home with a 2 hour call out (that's what I have today!).

Next month the afternoon airport standby shift has Tuesday thru Thursdays off plus Friday off until 2PM. Hmmm.....no lo quiero.

The morning airport standby shift has the partial weekends off that I like. I don't care for morning airport standby. I had that line for February. The hours of standby (6AM - 2PM) are more in line with my wife and her work schedule (6AM-3PM). The morning standby line is 4 days of standby unlike the afternoon which is only 3 followed by a reserve day. The reason being they can likely get a morning standby pilot back to base same day. The afternoon shift mostly covers overnight flights. When I had morning standby in February I was tired all day. Sitting around the airport makes me tired. Sitting around the airport during the morning hours is even worse.

For each month on reserve I am guaranteed 75 hours of pay. Line holders are only guaranteed 72 hours of pay. Most of the time real lines have 75-90 hours of flight time. In addition to more hours, line holders get more per diem as they are away from home more often. Next month things look a little dreary.

With the downturn of the economy (where is that CHANGE Obama was preaching about occurring so quickly?) the line values are very low next month. How low?

Of the hard lines next month, only 24% have MORE than 75 hours. What does this mean? Well this means I will be paid for more flight hours than 76% of the line holders. I could make as much or more than some line holders as the day trip lines (pilots fly out in the morning and are done in the evening each day) have less than 75 flight hours and very little per diem. Of course...they still hold a hard line.

There is a small chance I could hold a line. If enough pilots bid reserve to make more money (but possibly have a less structured month if they get called often) I could hold  line. Very, very, very doubtful.....but possible.

The old URL for this site is no longer functional. I pulled the plug a few days ago. I do find it interesting that 8-12 people google this site each day versus use a bookmark. Guess it's faster? Eh.

I'm going to spend the morning updating my logbook...I haven't updated it since February. I have meant to update it several times...always found an excuse.


  1. I am def. one of those 8-12 people that google this, I have it bookmarked but it takes away some of the fun.

  2. Obama said change isn't going to come overnight.

