You all have been so helpful in giving great answers to my previous questions and helping me evaluate whether I should persue this career, so I thought I’d ask another one.
This is a pretty common question but with a slight twist:
How hard is it for a junior-ish pilot to get more than 15 days off per month?
I have seen the previous answers: seniority means everything, juniors get minimum of 12 days, most pilots have around 15. And yes, I have reviewed the schedules section of this forum and have found that informative.
I know what a typical/minimum schedule is, (there is plenty of info on that), but my main question is this: are those who fly more than 15 days a month doing it by choice? Or are those the fewest days they can possibly get? I.e. if I don’t need to fly 70+ hours/month in order to pay my bills, how hard would it be to fly only 12-15 days per month?
Let’s assume this is for someone with 3-7 years of senority.
Perhaps this could be a better way to phrase it: how many years until one would be able to consisently have more than 15 days off per month?
As I’ve said before, sorry for the questions that you probably get asked all the time…
That’s a hard question to answer. It depends on where you’re talking… at a regional or a major, which seat you’re in, how senior you are, what type of flying you’re bidding for, etc.
At the regionals, you can expect the min 12 days off for a while. You will probably never see more than 15 days off and I’ll tell you why. There isn’t enough staffing to cover all the trips so bidding software’s job is to maximize the amount of trips that each crew member can cover within the required min 12 days off and max 90 credit. If the average trip credit is 20 hours, the bidding software will want to fill your schedule with say four 4 day trips (80 hours) and one two day (10 hours) getting you to the magic 90 hours credit with 18 days working and 12 days off.
Now, let’s say best case scenario you’re in a junior base and you moved up quickly and now you’re a senior FO so you try to bid for more efficient trips, but there are only a few in the system that credit more than 24 hours. You get 2 of those, putting you at 48 hours credit and two three day trips crediting 15 hours each putting you at 78 hours credit. Now at this point you can request min credit (which is only 75 hours) and potentially get away with 78 hours credit with 16 days off. However, requesting min credit is simply a request and if staffing won’t allow it, you’ll get another 3 day trip crediting 12 hours tacked on to get you from 78 up to 90. Now you’re off 13 days instead of what you wanted at 16. You can also try and drop trips, however, that is also simply a request and if staffing won’t allow it will be denied. (I haven’t successfully dropped a trip in the 2 years I’ve been at the regionals).
So you try this each month, sometimes you get it sometimes you don’t until you reach the magic 1000 hours 121 time and you’re forced into upgrading. Now you’re the junior captain starting from the bottom with even less staffing (on the capt side). So you’re even less likely to get any efficient trips, drop trips or minimum credit.
Let’s say you get a job at a major… you’re the junior FO again. The staffing is more balanced, occasionally you can drop a trip but you’re not getting senior nearly as quickly. It could take a few years to get up to 15 days off and right when you can, you’re at a crossroads to upgrade or keep your quality of life.
Do you see how complex scheduling is? There are so many factors involved plus luck and timing.
If you’re junior you will not be getting more than 15days off a month unless the contract provides for that being the minimum. In fact you should count on having LESS than 15 days off for a while. Rhe only airline I’m aware of that has a 15 day min for Reserve is SWA.
Thanks for the replies Adam and Hannah. Very helpful information.
I see it is quite complex, and it sounds like I would have to be 10-15+ years down the road (at least) in order to get more than 15 days off.
I do however have a friend who’s a 1st year FO at Delta and says he only flies about 12 days/month. It sounds like he’s either extremely lucky or found some loophole.
I’m just thinking: if it takes a half day to commute at each end of the trip, and you have 4 trips per month, that’s leaving at most 8 full days per month at home.
For one with a family/who likes to be at home, that sounds like much less free time than a traditional full time job…
It depends on where you’re at…I wouldn’t expect any more than 12 days off while flying for the regionals. Once you get to a Major (LCC or Legacy) you can expect staffing and flying schedules to be healthier. There is a ton of hiring going on right now so your buddy could have built up seniority fast and taken advantage of dropping trips and bidding min credit to get that.
I respectfully disagree. Average Joe works 9-5 M-F. That’s roughly 20on, 10off. Even with 12 off when I’m off I’m off. No phone calls, no homework or projects. Now if you choose to commute you will lose days but that’s YOUR choice. Further with some seniority you won’t only get 15 off, you could get 20. I don’t know any job that’ll pay you $450k+ with 20 days off. That said if you think an airline is going to hire you to work part-time right off the bat this might not be for you.
I get what you’re saying. If you’re talking about time “off” including rest time between flights on trips, then yes, but I am more thinking about time spent at home…
The way I look at it, I’m awake for about 16 hours a day, and with a 9-5 job, I’ll likely spend about 6 of that at home. So 1/3 of every work day is “off”, in addition to the 8-10 off days (weekends) per month. Which brings it to the magic number of about 15-17 days off per month justifies being gone for full days.
Of course, when flying, youre still getting that “1/3” of the day off, but its not at home with family.
And yes, I can see this career being very good once you get senority, but I have to weigh out if its worth it to be gone so much for the first 10-15 years until I get to the point where I can get the 20 days off.
Just yet some more things for me to consider.
Really appriciate the input.