Daily life as an airline pilot

Lunchbox said:
1. 15 minute drive to the employee lot, 5 minute walk to the plane carrying my lunchbox with a lunch and the company ipad packed inside, arrive at the plane 1 hour before departure, say hi to some of the pax boarding, load flight plan, brief, taxi out and fly typically 2-4 hours of block time and either 2 or 4 flights, between each flight is about 45 minutes of down time to offload and reload pax, arrive back home by dinner time. No hotels.

2. We have 13 different bases (none in Chicago) and I wouldn't recommend commuting here if you can't move to a base. You will take a top QOL job of all day trips and ruin it by commuting plus you will have some single days off if you're junior while possibly being based in a non commuter friendly airport with low frequency of flights. We have commuters but only the very senior ones have a good life. Places like Southwest, AA or UAL on the widebody are setup much better for Chicago commuting even while being junior and yes new hires have been awarded the 75 at UAL.

3. Lately new hires have gotten their base of choice within 1-4 months, except Bellingham.

4. It varies a lot with the person you're flying with for the day. I enjoy good conversation but I also respect those who don't want to talk much. On a 4 hour flight you run out of things to talk about so yes, "we study our manuals."

5. This varies a lot based on how I bid, I can have 22 days off a month and only work 8 if I bid max daily credit and min monthly credit. I typically shoot for max monthly credit and I don't always bid for the max daily flying because I live so close to the airport and sometimes I just want to have an 8 hour duty day with 2 flights vs a 11 or 12 hours duty day with 4 flights. If we had overnights here and I was just going back to a hotel then I would want max daily credit but an 8 hour duty day is half a day off for me because I'll be back home by about 2pm. A typical month for me starts out with being awarded 17 days off and flying on 13. For a junior pilot on reserve expect to be on call 18 days and have 12 off. The days off vary so much from base to base and different equipment but for a junior line holder about 14 days off a month is average.
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What airline/ operation is this? You can PM if thats better. Sounds like descent QOL, living close to base helps.
 
Lunchbox said:
Yeah it's been unreal QOL especially in this industry, best gig out there in my opinion (Allegiant Air). Some of my neighbors still think I'm unemployed I'm around so much.
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Thats the style... Fly so little you're actually looking forward to it! I'm still working on ATP min's and have a ways to go.
 
What is the typical number of consecutive days off in between trips? Does this differ between the regionals and majors?
 
flybywp said:
What is the typical number of consecutive days off in between trips? Does this differ between the regionals and majors?
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Totally depends. For me anywhere between 1 to 7, depends on lineholder vs reserve and how you bid, what you get, and what is even feasible to be awarded in your base/seat.
 
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