PreFlight

Welcome to the Rotate Newsletter. This newsletter is meant to provide insight to the aspiring aviator who wishes to join the commercial airline industry. This newsletter will provide the reader with the advantages and disadvantages of each airline and help determine the best airline suited to the needs of you and your family. Each airline has subtle differences in their contracts that have large impacts on a pilot’s career and job satisfaction. In terms of pay, the major airlines are all within a percentage of each other. Thus, this newsletter won’t focus on pay. Rather, explore the quality of life policies each airline provides to its aviators in the form of a pilot contract. While we won’t discuss the pay tables, we will discuss the different “soft pay” provided by each company.

Quality of Life

Each airline has provisions in their contract that are commonly referred to as the working rules. These “rules” equate to quality of life for the pilot group. Each pilot holds each rule at a higher or lower value depending on his or her perspective. These include things like scheduling, commuting, deadheads, sick time, and so on and so forth. In this edition, we will give an overview of the policies with the largest impact on quality of life. In future newsletters, Rotate will speak to company specifics and how the provisions of each impact the pilot on a day-day basis.

Scheduling dictates when a pilot works and doesn’t. This starts with a bidding system where pilots input their wishes. Once the bidding period closes, the bidding system produces both the “Line” and “Reserve” pilots for that bid cycle. Like all things in the airline industry, the most senior get their first requests, while the junior pilots are left with the scraps. When it comes to Line pilots, think of them as individuals who know their schedule prior to the beginning of the next bid month. Line pilots are typically, but not always, the most senior. Reserve pilots are just that, reservists waiting for that call into the line operation. At most airlines, when it comes to scheduling, the contract dictates the rules under which the Line and Reserve pilot can be utilized. Depending on the airline, these rules can either provide a similar quality of life for both Line and Reserve pilots. While at others, leaving the Reserve pilots desperately longing to gain seniority to become a Line pilot. Rotate will break down each airline’s rules for both Line and Reserve pilots.

Regardless of the type of schedule you hold, each company has ways for its pilots to manipulate that schedule to accommodate the needs of their employees. Depending on the contract, some are very flexible, while others are quite restricted. To mention a few, these manipulation tactics can come in the form of payback days (days earned working during your off time), personal drops (schedule drops without pay), moving your non-scheduled days, or the ultimate schedule re-write….sick call. Unless you are senior in your category (aircraft and base), you most likely won’t get the schedule you desire in the bidding cycle. The ability to move your awarded schedule left or right is critical in regards to the quality of life piece. This is especially true for junior pilots; once again, seniority is king! Follow-on editions will deep dive into this topic for each company.

One of the greatest dual-edge swords that employment by the airline offers is the ability to commute from home to work. This one choice alone can heavily impact the quality of life for a pilot. However, this is a choice, and living “in base” provides the greatest flexibility, but depending on the base location, it may be highly undesirable. Rotate will discuss each airline’s Hub locations and current commutability to each base. For readers not familiar with the ins and outs of the airline industry, commuting to work can be a challenge and not a benefit that is guaranteed by the companies. A guarantee is commonly referred to as positive space travel within the industry and is sometimes offered during irregular operations. Positive space is uncommon in the day-to-day operation. Commuters first path to work is booking the jump seat. This is often a game of timing and a quick draw of the fingers on an app to get the one or two coveted seats available on the flight deck before his or her eager fellow commuter. For some commute locations, this is so competitive that some pilots set alarms for the time that the window opens to book the seat. If you are among the less fortunate, the commuter’s second option is to pray for space in the back of the aircraft. As you could imagine, this gets more difficult during the peak airline travel season as seats are less available. Most companies have commuter policies that require a pilot to have a primary and then a backup commute. This leads to conversations about crash pads. If the trip is commutable, sometimes the commute policy pushes the pilot into a crash pad situation. What is meant by commutable? This is a trip that allows the crew to commute the same day to the base prior to the start of the rotation and commute on the same day that the rotation ends home. Whether a trip is commutable or not varies for many different reasons. Again, this is a topic that will be covered in later issues for company specifics. Know that if you do choose to be a commuter, unpaid travel and a stay with five of your unknown best friends in a crash pad could potentially be in your future.

Soft Pay

Each airline offers different forms of soft pay. Premium, Green Slips, Extended Duty Pay, Short Call credit, Holiday Pay, the list goes on. How the pilot qualifies for these is different for each company, with different associated triggers. This is where the airlines can really stand out in terms of salary. A word of caution here, these forms of pay can sometimes adversely affect your quality of life. Reroute pay is great, until you are rerouted into the next day, extending your trip into your son’s baseball game.

Profit sharing is another form of soft pay that most airlines offer to their pilot groups. With this last contract cycle, most modeled their profit sharing formula after Delta. This formula essentially forces the company to set aside a percentage of the profit every quarter to disburse amongst its employees. Some companies divide the profit among all working groups (a tool utilized to prevent unions from forming), while others have this form of pay only available to their pilot groups. However, when joining an airline, keep in mine that to qualify for profit sharing, the airline must be profitable. Individual company newsletters will address what each company provides for soft pay.

Brake Set

Each airline has its positives and negatives for quality of life. When I walked into the airline industry, I was clueless as to the importance and interpretation of the pilot contracts. The work rules truly dictate the airline pilot’s day-to-day work life. Rotate will shed light on every company’s work rules, giving an unbias description of each airline. The goal is to help pilots make informed decisions and choose the airline that matches their desires. Below is the timeline for the upcoming newsletter.

1  John Collins has over 16 years of professional aviation experience. He currently serves as a Captain for a major airline. Previously, he served in the United States Marine Corps, flying AV-8B Harriers. John holds a Masters in Aeronautics.