We are starting to see more routes out of Chicago flying, two new airports for myself in my list, FSD (Sioux Falls) and CMI (Champaign). I love stopping in at new destinations as it brings new challenges that we can learn and work from. I flew the ORD-FSD route, roughly an hour airtime. It is one of our higher elevation airports we visit, sitting roughly 1,400’. There are only a few airports in our network that are over 1,000’ elevation. Overall, this month turned out to be great with block versus credit hours, a nice change of pace to the usual 80+ hours block I was aiming for per month.
Unfortunately, due to Hurricane Helene, I was unable to get to my Asheville turn on September 29th, as much of the area is suffering from the catastrophic weather. They had been canceling flights from previous days and I was monitoring the departure/arrival flights. It seems that operations resumed the following day.
One month closer to upgrade, I’ll leave everyone in suspense…
Totals: 47.3 hours block time, 93 hours credited time, 19 days off (counts DIS)
1 - OFF
2 - OFF
3 - OFF
4 - OFF
5 - OFF
6 - MDT-PHL-RIC-PHL-GSO
7 - GSO-PHL-MDT
8 - MDT-PHL-CAE-CLT-HSV
9 - HSV-ORD-FSD-ORD-MDT
10 - OFF
11 - OFF
12 - OFF
13 - DIS
14 - DIS
15 - DIS
16 - DIS
17 - OFF
18 - OFF
19 - MDT-PHL-ORF-PHL-SBY
20 - SBY-CLT(DH/)MDT * DIS
21 - DIS
22 - DIS
23 - MDT-ORD-DSM-ORD-MDT
24 - OFF
25 - OFF
26 - OFF
27 - MDT-ORD-CMI-ORD-RIC
28 - RIC-PHL-ILM
29 - ILM-PHL(DUTY)PHL-SBY
30 - SBY(DH/)PHL-MHT-PHL-MDT
Looks like a nice schedule with lots of days off! I’m a little surprised that you don’t have more airports with higher elevations, but I guess Piedmont do primarily fly in the east/northeast regions. The highest elevation airport I’ve been to so far is Durango, MX, where the field elevation is just above 6000 ft!
It’s a shame about Asheville and what they have dealt with this past week. It is one of my favorite overnights and a nice scenic airport to fly into.
Looking forward to the eventual upgrade announcement!
Most of our airports are MSL - 800’ I would say, a few stragglers in there that are above 1,000’.
I love Asheville as well, the approaches into the airport and community are up there on my list of favorites. I was happy to see the operations resuming into the airport the other day.
Hi Brady,
Thank you for sharing!
I have a few questions about the schedule, if you would be able to explain.
What is displaced, deadhead, and credit hours?
I understand that block hours are the hours you are actually flying and the other hours are hours you get paid, but not flying (i think).
Thanks in advance and good luck with the upgrade!
-nancy
Welcome back to the forum and thanks for your questions. I’ll keep it as simple as I can:
Displaced: A trip that was originally awarded during bidding was “removed” from the line due to flying with a line check airman (an operating experience instructor), and you’re PAID. When displaced, two things can happen, you can either get put on another trip if scheduling needs or given the time off; in this case, I was not given another trip in conjunction with the displacement and paid as if I flew the trip.
Deadhead: You’re paid a percentage (I believe ours without double checking is 75% pay for that flight) of compensation to travel as a “crewmember” in the cabin to be relocated to fly or overnight for next day duty.
Credit Hours: Hours paid for the entire month, various factors can go into this, i.e., holiday flying, leg segment (number of legs a day) flying, base flying (typically I will see higher credit trips when flying Chicago routes).
I appreciate the kind words and looking forward to upgrade process!
