Min Day (can you afford to lose it?)

jynxyjoe

Queso King
For the Pinnacle guys.

"Friend's" pay for this month. Bid reserve last out, BUT no other reserves, so he was used the whole time like a baby uses a diaper, although he did get to spend a lot of nights at home so it could have been much worse. Company offered 200% pickup for month so "Friend" picked up a 2 day worth ~11 credits before 200%. Basically a 900 FO abused for a month with one open time pickup just to make the month worthwhile. Rate $42.45 and perdiem is $1.70

Keep in mind the numbers will go up a little more before month is done, probably another 50 bucks depending. Block time about 75:46 (predicted) for the month.

Summary:
$5470.96 pay + $577.64 perdiem (no the captain still pays for first round)

Min day - $898.67 = 16% of my pay

(Keep in mind open time is 150% anyway, so the company decides to toss on another 50% to the open time pickup out of goodness of their heart)
%50 of the open time pickup given to me by company = $251.09. The other $753.28 is from the contract.

So my min day this month is worth more than the open time pickup before the company tossed me an extra $251.09. Now I know the real question here is, what will the paycheck actually have on it because Pinnacle payroll is illiterate thanks to the local bumpkins. After you answer that question yourself I hope everyone asks themselves, CAN WE AFFORD TO LOSE MIN DAY?
 
Min day is tricky if you don't have some sort of duty or trip rig attached.

If your min day is 4 hours the schedule builder will work very hard to get you to the four hours per day. That means that if on your last day you are scheduled at 3 hours, you probably will be getting a 3 hour Airport Productivity Break so you can go do a victory lap to break the 4 hour day number so you aren't "taking" money from the company.
 
We have min. day to motivate the company to build productive pairings. The problem is they are too stupid to fight their way out of a paper bag. If we start giving away work rules, we're all going to be right back in the sweat shop. I know we will have little choice in BK court but we can't go down without a fight.
 
Just want to add in, overheard 2 PNCL captains on the employee bus this morning, and this is how the conversation went:

Pilot 1: I don't know how we can afford a 15% paycut, but it beats unemployment.
Pilot 2: I agree. Just accept what we can get until we move on somewhere else.
 
Just want to add in, overheard 2 PNCL captains on the employee bus this morning, and this is how the conversation went:

Pilot 1: I don't know how we can afford a 15% paycut, but it beats unemployment.
Pilot 2: I agree. Just accept what we can get until we move on somewhere else.

Oh, I got to "learn" someone about that stuff last week.

Of course the other FO and I were bitching about the contract and the captain didn't think it was that bad.

"when did you upgrade to captain"

(near the first round of pay cuts)

"so you moved a seat, but kept your pay, right?)

(more or less)

"you know current captains THEN and FOs without the seniority to upgrade took the biggest hit because there was no alternative to keep pay stable. Many of saw dramatic drops in our W-2's but when you went from 767 FO to 737 captain during the exodus during the pay cuts..."

(blink)



Sent from my TRS-80
 
Oh, I got to "learn" someone about that stuff last week.

Of course the other FO and I were bitching about the contract and the captain didn't think it was that bad.

"when did you upgrade to captain"

(near the first round of pay cuts)

"so you moved a seat, but kept your pay, right?)

(more or less)

"you know current captains THEN and FOs without the seniority to upgrade took the biggest hit because there was no alternative to keep pay stable. Many of saw dramatic drops in our W-2's but when you went from 767 FO to 737 captain during the exodus during the pay cuts..."

(blink)



Sent from my TRS-80


Haha- love the blink. It really puts the reader there.
 
Oh, I got to "learn" someone about that stuff last week.

I just sat there and shook my head. I didn't feel like getting into it with anyone at 7 in the morning. They went on to talk about how ASA is more expensive, and other crap. But from what they were saying, they will take 1113 over being on the street with the same pay as still working.
 
I just wanna say I'm glad to have the jynxyjoe commentary on the state of affairs at the 'new' Mesaba back on the forum. Seems like you've been missing lately and it's knowledge we all need.

Also, I can't afford to live even WITH min-day.
 
I just wanna say I'm glad to have the jynxyjoe commentary on the state of affairs at the 'new' Mesaba back on the forum. Seems like you've been missing lately and it's knowledge we all need.

Also, I can't afford to live even WITH min-day.
Oh I don't mind posting every once in a while, but it's clear this is forum is making the shift from jetcareers to GOjetcareers. The community leaders and it's moderators are shifting in an unpleasant direction and I don't always have the stomach for it. Anyway if it's information you want you can always PM, not that I know anything worthwhile but I can point you in a good direction I suppose.
 
I went back and looked at what I would have gotten in pay with min day back when I was being abused on reserve. I wanted to cry. Seriously. After I hit "total" on the calculator, I went straight for the vodka. It was over 5 digits the company would have owed me, mostly due to all the ready reserve shifts where I sat for free. I didn't even have the heart to just find out what more I would have gotten if I had gotten per diem for those ready reserve shifts. I normally wind up with AT LEAST 5+ hours of min day pay a month because of inefficient pairings. If the company wants to save tons of cash......build better pairings, assuming Delta gives us schedules we can work with. Might even save some cancellations. I know I had 4 flights cancel last month because I timed out.....because my last in bound flight was a whopping 1:30 late. They schedule RIGHT TO the max on the last day, and that 1:30 put us over 15 hours. Sorry. Wait, no I'm not.

Losing min day alone drops me around $500/mo. That's before they slash my pay. The real reason they want min day gone: Go Jets doesn't have it. Nevermind the fact the other regionals we're on par with DO. They're goal is to undercut the lowest of the low.
 
I went back and looked at what I would have gotten in pay with min day back when I was being abused on reserve. I wanted to cry. Seriously. After I hit "total" on the calculator, I went straight for the vodka. It was over 5 digits the company would have owed me, mostly due to all the ready reserve shifts where I sat for free. I didn't even have the heart to just find out what more I would have gotten if I had gotten per diem for those ready reserve shifts. I normally wind up with AT LEAST 5+ hours of min day pay a month because of inefficient pairings. If the company wants to save tons of cash......build better pairings, assuming Delta gives us schedules we can work with. Might even save some cancellations. I know I had 4 flights cancel last month because I timed out.....because my last in bound flight was a whopping 1:30 late. They schedule RIGHT TO the max on the last day, and that 1:30 put us over 15 hours. Sorry. Wait, no I'm not.

Losing min day alone drops me around $500/mo. That's before they slash my pay. The real reason they want min day gone: Go Jets doesn't have it. Nevermind the fact the other regionals we're on par with DO. They're goal is to undercut the lowest of the low.
This is why I want out, we have NO hope of competing with the other commuters. Not a chance. Too much has to be cut to make that happen. If we did I wouldn't mind staying here, it's still a great place to work IMO.

That being said I can't stand min pay it's such a waste I want 6-7 hours a day that would make me much happier.

I was up front on XYZ carrier last week and they were hoping against hope their turn wouldn't be canceled and I was thinking WTF are these dudes smoking...then it hit me...no cx pay...I just can't imagine not getting paid for the stuff I take for granted.

In 5-10 years commuters will be for rich trust fund guys, can you imagine making $40k-$50k a year working 20+ days a month as a CA? Maybe $35k as an FO. Jesus. I'm sure that's what the mainline guys were thinking before their pay was cut 50% though...
 
That being said I can't stand min pay it's such a waste I want 6-7 hours a day that would make me much happier.
I'm lost on this comment, perhaps I misunderstood.

If you have a day built to 6-7 hours, and that's every day, then you won't even acquire min day credit. The company knows that and trys to build our days in excess of four hours (average on the -900 is about 5.5 a day). If the company builds crap lines, we at least get our four hours. For reserve guys, min day is a lifesaver, and it's about 16% of my pay this month. On reserve they can't always get me 5-6 hours a day (leave out 6-7).

If you're a line holder you aren't going to use Min Day a lot except on those crappy 20 hour four day trips. No one with a 31 hour 4 day needs the min day. I wish all of us had those sorts of builds. We don't. The min day helps bring up the guys pay who need it most.

Does that make sense? Am I misunderstanding you and you are saying your duty rigs give you six hours a day of pay?
 
Double what Jynxy said. We'd ALL rather have the more efficient 6-8 hour block days. The 4 hour min day is there to make sure you at least get SOMETHING when you get crap on your schedule. The fact that I get so much credit every month off the min day just shows how inefficient our stuff is. In a perfect world, we'd ALWAYS be over min day. Better for us, and better for the company. If we're crediting min day a lot, odds are good we've got more pilots than we really need because of inefficiencies. We TRIED for duty rigs. The super senior guys said it would wreck the schedules, and they'd just build the schedules to the min rig. These are also the same guys that said if we got min day, they'd just build everything to 4 hours, too. Anything to not rock their boat, I guess. The way our schedules work here lately (at least out of JFK), if you have a 4 day, at least ONE of those days is going to be built below min day. It'll probably be two legs and done at like 11 am or something. That's how EVERY ONE of my trips are for next month. Total credit is in the 25 hour range, but 2-3 hours of the total trip is soft money from the min day. Without it, the trip would be around 22 hours. So, it's netting me an extra $150+. Sure, I'd RATHER have a more efficient day in the middle and get an extra day off out of the deal, but the pairings aren't built that way. Therefore, I'm happy to have what I've got and would like to keep it.
 
Double what Jynxy said. We'd ALL rather have the more efficient 6-8 hour block days. The 4 hour min day is there to make sure you at least get SOMETHING when you get crap on your schedule. The fact that I get so much credit every month off the min day just shows how inefficient our stuff is. In a perfect world, we'd ALWAYS be over min day. Better for us, and better for the company. If we're crediting min day a lot, odds are good we've got more pilots than we really need because of inefficiencies. We TRIED for duty rigs. The super senior guys said it would wreck the schedules, and they'd just build the schedules to the min rig. These are also the same guys that said if we got min day, they'd just build everything to 4 hours, too. Anything to not rock their boat, I guess. The way our schedules work here lately (at least out of JFK), if you have a 4 day, at least ONE of those days is going to be built below min day. It'll probably be two legs and done at like 11 am or something. That's how EVERY ONE of my trips are for next month. Total credit is in the 25 hour range, but 2-3 hours of the total trip is soft money from the min day. Without it, the trip would be around 22 hours. So, it's netting me an extra $150+. Sure, I'd RATHER have a more efficient day in the middle and get an extra day off out of the deal, but the pairings aren't built that way. Therefore, I'm happy to have what I've got and would like to keep it.
You guys lines being built by the union committee like ours are? It could get better with time potentially.
 
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