Freight Pilot Schedule?

Jeremy

Jeremy

New Member
I'm confused about WHEN Freight Pilots fly. Is it like a 5-day week kind of job, or is it like flying for the airlines where you're off for a while, then you fly for like a week?
 
Depends an awful lot on what kind of freight.

At my airline we have set schedules, with each run being different. I currently work 5 days a week (M-F) 10 hours a day, with overtime for the fifth day. When I'm not actively flying a route, since I'm a reserve pilot, I sit at the airport from 1pm-11pm. I used to have a run that had me working M-R flying from 10:30pm-7am. Some guys work Wednesday-Wednesday and are off Thursday-Tuesday.

There are also other on-demand operators where you're tied to a pager and 30 mins after they call; you leave and don't have much of any idea when you're coming back home.

There are some others that bid much like the pax airlines do.
 
averyrm said:
There are also other on-demand operators where you're tied to a pager and 30 mins after they call; you leave and don't have much of any idea when you're coming back home.
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Not for long. On-demand is deader than disco.

Otherwise, agreed. Generally, in small freight, you'll do 5 on 2 off (4/3 still exists, but is getting much more rare from what I can tell). Most fly at night, but a sizable number during the day. Most likely something like 12 hours of "work" which may include a long layover somewhere.

Big freight is run just like any other airline, with "bids", etc.
 
I fly 6 on 1 off. I live in a hotel in a different country. My day off is in the hotel. I do this 3 weeks on 1 week off. There is nothing standard about 135 freight schedules.
Side note i've lived in hotels since March 6th. Should add another one to the list, you might be a freight dawg if you have two hotel keys in your wallet at the same time. I've actually had three before but that was a crazy day.
 
It really depends on who you work for, and what kind of run you have. With the run that I have at Ram Air, I typically duty on at 1300 and duty off at 2100 (2200 on Fridays).
 
mikecweb said:
I fly 6 on 1 off. I live in a hotel in a different country. My day off is in the hotel. I do this 3 weeks on 1 week off. There is nothing standard about 135 freight schedules.
Side note i've lived in hotels since March 6th. Should add another one to the list, you might be a freight dawg if you have two hotel keys in your wallet at the same time. I've actually had three before but that was a crazy day.
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I hear you cincy guys are getting bent over hard
 
Jeremy said:
So, you guys don't fly somewhere, come home, then takeoff the next morning?
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Yes and no. Some of us do and some of us don't. It depends. It varies. Its really the poo poo platter of flying.:) There's a little bit of everything schedule wise in 135 flying.
 
Jeremy said:
So, you guys don't fly somewhere, come home, then takeoff the next morning?
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well as far as 135 goes, that would be a good schedule.

As far as flying boxes goes, for me and most in my company, its head out about 730pm local, land at 830pm local. spend the night, and head back out at 6am in the morning, rinse and repeat. Throw in WX and such, and things can get interesting. But 99% of the time its about an hour of flying at night and an hour in the morning.
 
Man, that sounds like a pretty bad job... I thought I heard people say that Freight piloting was great!
 
It really just depends. My company has good schedules, bad schedules, horrible schedules, and "I wouldn't wish this on my worse enemey" schedules. It's no different than from any other type of flying really.
 
Jeremy said:
Man, that sounds like a pretty bad job... I thought I heard people say that Freight piloting was great!
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Well it is pretty great. Go out and try to find regional pilots that get to fly one leg, sleep in a hotel room, wake up and fly a leg. Most of them are flying 5 legs, if they get to fly, and if they're not flying, they're sitting at an airport for 12 hours.

Ill take my terrible freight job anyday.

And oh yeah, how many jet jocks get to take their plane home for the holiday weekend?
 
I fly 121 freight. M-F 2040-until we get back, which is usually 0630. Get holidays off and around 7 weeks vacation. Pay is ok, upgrade is fairly typical.
When I flew 135 I flew M-F with holidays. It was fairly consistent. Good stuff.
 
I keep my hotel keys for my plan to take over the world.... I must have like 25 different ones now, one from each different hotel I stay at....

mikecweb said:
I fly 6 on 1 off. I live in a hotel in a different country. My day off is in the hotel. I do this 3 weeks on 1 week off. There is nothing standard about 135 freight schedules.
Side note i've lived in hotels since March 6th. Should add another one to the list, you might be a freight dawg if you have two hotel keys in your wallet at the same time. I've actually had three before but that was a crazy day.
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At my job, we are reserve M-F, sat and sun off. You can volunteer reserve on weekends and if you get a flight you will get 70 bucks plus per diem.

Our schedule comes out the night before so we know if we are scheduled to fly the next day or not. If your reserve on the schedule then you can sit at home or do whatever but your on call so you have to be available to fly if they call. I typically only get 1 day during the week where im sitting reserve (not flying), sometimes none.

A typical day for me would be to show at the airport at about 8am, depart around 9am. Arrive wherever between 11am or 12pm, then sit at the outstation till around 5-6pm, fly home. Long days but at most of the outstations we have crew rooms with lazy boys and TV's. Your also free to do whatever you want while your sitting around. We fly in the carribean so going to the beach is an option.
 
It all depends who your customer is
Today I had a 730am show for DHL Wheels up around 9 landed in BOI 1030 got to the hotel surfed the net for an hour, changed clothes had some killer tacos than watched x men at the theater came back and got ready with a 430pm show blocked at 5pm back in SLC 6ish home by 7pm. Pretty easy run if you ask me. I also took my son to dirty rons for breakfast and to the bus before showing up for work. Other runs suck monkey nutz...

Oh and watched a 747 World Cargo bird take off this morning in SLC kinda rare around these parts to see one of them.
 
JayAre said:
It all depends who your customer is
Today I had a 730am show for DHL Wheels up around 9 landed in BOI 1030 got to the hotel surfed the net for an hour, changed clothes had some killer tacos than watched x men at the theater came back and got ready with a 430pm show blocked at 5pm back in SLC 6ish home by 7pm. Pretty easy run if you ask me. I also took my son to dirty rons for breakfast and to the bus before showing up for work. Other runs suck monkey nutz...

Oh and watched a 747 World Cargo bird take off this morning in SLC kinda rare around these parts to see one of them.
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How in the world did you pull that run?
 
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