I can't speak for Starcheck, but the minimum daily pay at FLX is extremely unlikely. I worked maybe "a bit harder than most" and made about $35-36k my first year, and that was pre-raise. The duty day pay system makes direct comparisons difficult. Basically, you get paid a fixed amount for every hour on duty over 7.5, no matter what you're doing.
For example (real examples): A guy duties on around 7:30pm, is in the air around 8pm, flies to an airport about an hour away, lands, disgorges some checks, picks some checks up, flies back, unloads, duties off around say 10:15pm, and goes to his "real job". He makes $23.4k a year. Another guy duties on at 5:30 on the morning, flies three legs for about 2.5, lands at an outstation around 9:15am, goes to sleep on a recliner, eats, poops (banks), etc., takes off around 4pm, flies the same three legs in reverse, duties off around 7pm. He makes something like $42k/year. Basically the system rewards either working an insane amount, or working barely at all. It's the rare guy with an 8 hour duty day who winds up getting screwed.
I can smell this thread turning in to one of those nails-on-chalkboard "pilot a/pilot b" compensation/QOL/CareerExpectation bitchfest back-n-forths. Welcome to the regionals!
For what it's worth, I think it's extra crappy that they replaced a starcheck baron with an FLX baron, if true.
And, to raise an entirely different issue, can anyone come up with a defense for the total lack of transparency on this? Like, if Bayside's goal is to move all of the prop flying to the FLX side of the house (not saying it is), why not say so? They could win back some goodwill from everybody involved by just stating their intentions and have basically nothing to lose, as far as I can see.
