Matt13C
Well-Known Member
Could you, or someone else, explain how this works? I have no experience with any flying for hire.
How are you paid for 102 hours and only flew 63?
hours of block?
Stand-ups?
The old warhorse
- Thread starter aloft
- Start date
Could you, or someone else, explain how this works? I have no experience with any flying for hire.
How are you paid for 102 hours and only flew 63?
hours of block?
Stand-ups?
Nick
Well-Known Member
Soft Time
Work rules within the contract of each company dictate just how a pilot will be paid. I am talking about airline flying here, so any other sector of the industry could be different.
There are many different ways that the final monthly pay amount is created.
A few of them are daily pay and a few of them are pay over the course of a trip.
The most long-term category is the minimum pay for the month itself.
Monthly guarantee
A pilot is paid a minimum hours of credit per month regardless of how much he or she flies. As mentioned above, typically 65-75 hours.
Trip guarantee
This differs from airline to airline.
Take a four-day trip for example. This particular four-day trip straddles a holiday and the middle two days of the trip are actually layover days because of the reduced schedule. So, on day one the pilots fly a few hours, then they go to the layover city and spend the following two days there doing no flying at all, and then on day four they fly back to a hub and do a bit more flying and finish the trip.
In this four-day trip, the pilots fly 6 hours the first day, and 6 hours the last day. Yet they were gone for four days. Surely they should not be paid for just 12 hours after being away for more than half of the week.
This is creates the need for a trip guarantee, or a trip rig.
A trip guarantee in the contract say something like this: "a four-day trip shall be worth no less than 15 hours." Or 20. Or 25. Or whatever amount was negotiated into the contract.
With that, the pilots that flew this trip would earn 15, 20, 25, or whatever amount of credit hours since they were on a four-day trip, despite the fact that they only flew 12 hours.
A trip rig is the same general idea but it is tied to the time away from base, or TAFB, in the form of a ratio.
A trip rig in a contract might say: "a pilot shall be paid no less than 1 hour for every 4 hours spent away from base."
So, if this trip started at 8AM on day one and finished on day four at 4PM, the TAFB is 80 hours. 80 hours means the pilots would be paid no less than 20 hours credit regardless of how much they flew. With this same ratio, a trip that started at 5AM on the first day and ended at 11PM on day four would credit 22.5 hours. Clearly a trip rig is a good thing to have in a contract as you can see!
Daily Guarantee
Now within the monthly guarantee, and within the trip guarantee, there is a daily guarantee.
This is similar to the trip guarantee in that it protects a pilot from not being paid even though they did not fly.
A daily guarantee could be for days that there is no flying, or days that there is very little flying. It could read "a pilot shall be paid no less than 4 hours credit for any duty period." That is to say, if a pilot has a day trip where they fly from the base to another city which is only a quick 45 minute flight, and then the company has them sit there for a couple of hours, and then fly back, the pilot will not be paid just 90 minutes as they spent most of their day on duty. They would credit four hours of pay.
Slightly better than a basic daily guarantee would be a duty rig. Exactly the same idea as a trip rig except it is based on an individual duty period. It might read "a pilot shall credit no less than 1 hour of pay for every 3 hours on duty." A twelve hour duty day then, no matter how little flying is in it, would credit at least four hours. A duty rig might also not kick in until a long duty period is worked. For example, just a normal four hour guarantee for the day, except when ten hours on duty is reached, a pilot is paid an hour for each hour on duty for the rest of the day.
A few other things are in contracts that ensure a certain amount of pay can be counted on. Cancellation pay is one important one. If a flight cancels for maintenance or weather, shouldn't the crew be paid? Of course -- it is not their fault and they are ready to work.
Another is deadhead pay. Some companies pay less than 100% for deadheading crewmembers around the system as passengers. No matter what the percentage is, these are credit hours but not block hours.
So you can see how the non-flying pay, or "soft time", adds up in various ways over the course of a day, trip, or month.
Work rules within the contract of each company dictate just how a pilot will be paid. I am talking about airline flying here, so any other sector of the industry could be different.
There are many different ways that the final monthly pay amount is created.
A few of them are daily pay and a few of them are pay over the course of a trip.
The most long-term category is the minimum pay for the month itself.
Monthly guarantee
A pilot is paid a minimum hours of credit per month regardless of how much he or she flies. As mentioned above, typically 65-75 hours.
Trip guarantee
This differs from airline to airline.
Take a four-day trip for example. This particular four-day trip straddles a holiday and the middle two days of the trip are actually layover days because of the reduced schedule. So, on day one the pilots fly a few hours, then they go to the layover city and spend the following two days there doing no flying at all, and then on day four they fly back to a hub and do a bit more flying and finish the trip.
In this four-day trip, the pilots fly 6 hours the first day, and 6 hours the last day. Yet they were gone for four days. Surely they should not be paid for just 12 hours after being away for more than half of the week.
This is creates the need for a trip guarantee, or a trip rig.
A trip guarantee in the contract say something like this: "a four-day trip shall be worth no less than 15 hours." Or 20. Or 25. Or whatever amount was negotiated into the contract.
With that, the pilots that flew this trip would earn 15, 20, 25, or whatever amount of credit hours since they were on a four-day trip, despite the fact that they only flew 12 hours.
A trip rig is the same general idea but it is tied to the time away from base, or TAFB, in the form of a ratio.
A trip rig in a contract might say: "a pilot shall be paid no less than 1 hour for every 4 hours spent away from base."
So, if this trip started at 8AM on day one and finished on day four at 4PM, the TAFB is 80 hours. 80 hours means the pilots would be paid no less than 20 hours credit regardless of how much they flew. With this same ratio, a trip that started at 5AM on the first day and ended at 11PM on day four would credit 22.5 hours. Clearly a trip rig is a good thing to have in a contract as you can see!
Daily Guarantee
Now within the monthly guarantee, and within the trip guarantee, there is a daily guarantee.
This is similar to the trip guarantee in that it protects a pilot from not being paid even though they did not fly.
A daily guarantee could be for days that there is no flying, or days that there is very little flying. It could read "a pilot shall be paid no less than 4 hours credit for any duty period." That is to say, if a pilot has a day trip where they fly from the base to another city which is only a quick 45 minute flight, and then the company has them sit there for a couple of hours, and then fly back, the pilot will not be paid just 90 minutes as they spent most of their day on duty. They would credit four hours of pay.
Slightly better than a basic daily guarantee would be a duty rig. Exactly the same idea as a trip rig except it is based on an individual duty period. It might read "a pilot shall credit no less than 1 hour of pay for every 3 hours on duty." A twelve hour duty day then, no matter how little flying is in it, would credit at least four hours. A duty rig might also not kick in until a long duty period is worked. For example, just a normal four hour guarantee for the day, except when ten hours on duty is reached, a pilot is paid an hour for each hour on duty for the rest of the day.
A few other things are in contracts that ensure a certain amount of pay can be counted on. Cancellation pay is one important one. If a flight cancels for maintenance or weather, shouldn't the crew be paid? Of course -- it is not their fault and they are ready to work.
Another is deadhead pay. Some companies pay less than 100% for deadheading crewmembers around the system as passengers. No matter what the percentage is, these are credit hours but not block hours.
So you can see how the non-flying pay, or "soft time", adds up in various ways over the course of a day, trip, or month.
Nick
Well-Known Member
If you read the two posts that I made in this thread a few times each I think you will understand.
Quote the parts you don't.
Matt13C
Well-Known Member
Re: Soft Time
Wow...
Thank you for the very detailed write up. Complicated but seems fair.
Wow...
Thank you for the very detailed write up. Complicated but seems fair.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Our reserve pay system has a lot of soft time built in. Basically, any amount of flying you do in a day that's over 3.5 hours will go on top of guarantee. So you start the month with 70 hours pay credit for your guarantee, and every day you fly over 3.5 hours, the amount over 3.5 starts getting added on top of the 70 hour guarantee. Example:
Day 1 - Fly 7 hours = monthly credit now at 73.5
Day 2 - Fly 6 hours = monthly credit now at 76 hours
Day 3 - Fly 7 hours = monthly credit now at 79.5 hours
Day 4 - Fly 8 hours = monthly credit now at 84 hours
So, after just this one 4-day trip, your credit would already be at 84 hours after only flying 28 hours so far for the month. It just keeps adding up over the length of the month, and usually gets over 100 hours. It's an industry-leading reserve pay system. Too bad that's the only part of our agreement that's still industry-leading.
Not really. Would you rather only get paid 28 hours for flying 28 hours instead of getting paid 84 hours? I'll take a little complication to get some extra money.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
I get it, it just seems like a lot of extra paper when they could just pay a higher hourly, but there is a natural order to all things.
Our reserve pay system has a lot of soft time built in. Basically, any amount of flying you do in a day that's over 3.5 hours will go on top of guarantee. So you start the month with 70 hours pay credit for your guarantee, and every day you fly over 3.5 hours, the amount over 3.5 starts getting added on top of the 70 hour guarantee. Example:
Day 1 - Fly 7 hours = monthly credit now at 73.5
Day 2 - Fly 6 hours = monthly credit now at 76 hours
Day 3 - Fly 7 hours = monthly credit now at 79.5 hours
Day 4 - Fly 8 hours = monthly credit now at 84 hours
So, after just this one 4-day trip, your credit would already be at 84 hours after only flying 28 hours so far for the month. It just keeps adding up over the length of the month, and usually gets over 100 hours. It's an industry-leading reserve pay system. Too bad that's the only part of our agreement that's still industry-leading.
Not really. Would you rather only get paid 28 hours for flying 28 hours instead of getting paid 84 hours? I'll take a little complication to get some extra money.
Cool.
If I can get extra mulah I'll take it, and wouldn't complain.
Nick
Well-Known Member
Even if they just paid a higher hourly consider this:
A day trip with 2 hours of flying but 13 hours on duty.
$100 per hour
Pays $200.
But with a 5 hour daily guarantee, it pays $500.
Higher hourly pay of: $150
Pays $300.
But even with the normal pay rate it would still pay $500 which is better than a higher rate.
Without these work rules you WILL get screwed despite any offer of a raise.
Matt13C
Well-Known Member
Our reserve pay system has a lot of soft time built in. Basically, any amount of flying you do in a day that's over 3.5 hours will go on top of guarantee. So you start the month with 70 hours pay credit for your guarantee, and every day you fly over 3.5 hours, the amount over 3.5 starts getting added on top of the 70 hour guarantee. Example:
Day 1 - Fly 7 hours = monthly credit now at 73.5
Day 2 - Fly 6 hours = monthly credit now at 76 hours
Day 3 - Fly 7 hours = monthly credit now at 79.5 hours
Day 4 - Fly 8 hours = monthly credit now at 84 hours
So, after just this one 4-day trip, your credit would already be at 84 hours after only flying 28 hours so far for the month. It just keeps adding up over the length of the month, and usually gets over 100 hours. It's an industry-leading reserve pay system. Too bad that's the only part of our agreement that's still industry-leading.
I like that system.
I assume there is a per diem also? Do you have to fly a certain distance from base for it to be tax free or just out of state?
Does it start the second the door closes on your home ramp?
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Our per diem is 1.75/hr, and it starts from the moment you check in and goes until 15 minutes after block in at the end of the trip. It's all tax free as long as you're not flying just a day trip. I typically get somewhere between $400-$550 a month in per diem.
Lee D
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure there are many options for the scenario you mentioned. The captain could just "put up with it," and I suspect this would just create a strain on the CRM. So otherwise you just tell the guy/gal to play nice, get you the information you request and be part of the team. If not you call crew support and find a new F/O.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
I think the only way to deal with a retired military dude who can't seem to grasp that he's retired is to flat out confront him with it.
"Look, you're the FO -- not the Captain. You're not an O-6 anymore and this isn't a military aircraft. You may have lots of experience, but you don't have lots of experience in this airplane."
Dancing around the point, or calling the Chief Pilot, or whatever, is not going to get it through that guy's skull that he needs to re-adjust his attitude. Calling it out to his face has a much higher likelihood of working, as most O-6s have probably never had the critical truth said to their faces in several years.
"Look, you're the FO -- not the Captain. You're not an O-6 anymore and this isn't a military aircraft. You may have lots of experience, but you don't have lots of experience in this airplane."
Dancing around the point, or calling the Chief Pilot, or whatever, is not going to get it through that guy's skull that he needs to re-adjust his attitude. Calling it out to his face has a much higher likelihood of working, as most O-6s have probably never had the critical truth said to their faces in several years.
mjg407
Well-Known Member
I didn't fly as much as Velo, but that being said, I would average 250-300 hours a year, and very little of it was point to point. Most of it was spent "resetting flaps and gear and call go when ready".... Now most of our pilots here average 300/hours a season.
I would add to this scenario that I've seen the same thing when hiring ex-airline or ex-military guys here. It's a tough move for anyone to be in charge for years on end and then not be, that's why we are wary of hiring high time pilots. On the other hand, it's up to the individual to get his act together and realize he's part of team and do his part. I have one copilot who is a retired SJ 777 captain, and he's the best copilot we have, had another what was a retired mil type, and he didn't want to listen, that's why he's no longer here.
Velocipede
New Member
Hacker, I tend to agree with you. However, sometimes they're so wrapped up in their ego, it doesn't matter. Believe it or not, here's what we have going on TODAY at our place...
Retired Navy O-6 F/O. He routinely gets on the airplane and after 1st class is boarded, goes back and introduces himself to the MVPs and Golds as "Captain K......". And as if that isn't bad enough, he's had a couple of incidents that have won him system wide notoriety.
1. A jet comes out of D check. During the preflight, the F/As noticed 20-25 of the FAA required emergency placards had not been reinstalled on the seat backs. They reported it. The Captain, knowing you can't write a "gang" writeup, proceeds to write 25 discrepancies.
"Captain K......" gets all worked up and puts in a cell phone call to the Base Chief Pilot saying the Captain is attempting to delay the flight by writing bogus maintenance writeups. BCP has the Captain pulled off the flight (start of a 3 or 4 day) and sends him home without pay. System Chief Pilot upholds the suspension.
When the investigation comes around, the Captain shows up with his ALPA rep AND an FAA rep. The first question is, "How could you suspend me for writing up FAA REQUIRED PLACARDS? Case dismissed, pay and credit restored and apology letter from the Company placed in Captain's personnel file.
Additionally, BCP retires and System CP "voluntarily" goes back to line flying. Meanwhile "Captain K....." gets a crewroom nickname...T the Rat.
2. T the Rat is a commuter. Naturally, he always bids layovers in his hometown. So one morning, the crew holds the shuttle van for him for an extra 5 minutes. No T the Rat. They leave. Halfway to the airport the van driver's cell phone rings.
"We've got to go back to the Hotel," he says.
"Why?" asks the Captain.
"We left the Captain at the hotel, " VD says.
"No we didn't. I'm the Captain, keep going to the airport."
Reluctantly, the Van Driver did. About two minutes later, the Captain's cell phone rings. Its Crew Scheduling.
"How come you missed the van?" they ask.
"I didn't, I'm in the van," the Captain replies.
"Well, we just got a call from the hotel saying the Captain missed the van," they say.
"Nope, I'm here," he says.
About two minutes after that his phone rings again. This time its the Flight Operations Duty Officer (a senior management pilot).
"How come you missed the van?" he asks.
"I DIDN'T. I'm in the van," the Captain says.
Meanwhile, T the Rat is running around the lobby of the hotel yelling, "I'm Captain K......, get that van back here ASAP!"
:banghead:
It would be funny if it wasn't true. Needless to say, T the Rat isn't one of the most popular pilots on the property. In fact, after one of the other F/Os squared off on him in the crewroom one day he actually threatened to sue the Company and the original Captain he ratted out for creating a "hostile work environment."
:banghead::banghead:
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
This guy needs a lobotomy.
aloft
New Member
Agree, but I'd take it a step further and find another former military dude to confront him about it, given the dude's obvious disregard for guys who went the civilian route.
Lee D
Well-Known Member
True. There's no reason to pussyfoot around an issue caused by an inflated ego that is causing real crew issues.
Velo, just to read that story makes me feel tired. When they're not at work, you wonder how people like that treat their loved ones, if they truly have any. This is probably the kind of guy that refers to himself in third person during everyday conversation. "Captain K is hungry and needs a crewmeal!" (All I can hear now in my head is Duffman from the Simpsons.)
mjg407
Well-Known Member
Aloft,
The opposite happens as well. A lot of folks that I deal with in the FAA look down upon military guys. It's one of those you like what you know type things.
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