meitnerium

I’ve done two or three 4 day trips back to back as an SIC. You can get them for sure. Maybe not on the phenom, but I can attest to the midsize. 4 days on, 8 days off. It can be done. But as a junior FO probably not without PTO. The less you work, the less money you make.

UGA AV8R

So are all new hires on PBS? How many days off would you typically get in a month? Thx.

meitnerium

It varies. Usually 15 days off per month.

Ltsheets

How long is the bidding period? Do you bid for each month or is each bid for a longer period?

AA717driver

It’s for a month but you bid a couple months ahead. The new system is coming out soon so they didn’t really try to teach us to bid in indoc earlier this month.

Brooklyn99

A new hire can elect for:
1. 8/6 schedule
2. PBS system

...and sometimes...Respond to the "would you like longer rotations" email that comes out from time to time and hash it out with scheduling.

More detail:
1a - 8/6 is usually done about 6 months at a time. Once or twice a year you can opt between PBS or 8/6. A newhire will get the choice between 8/6 or PBS, and should start seeing option 3 in their email from time to time after onboarding

2a: a 4-day rotation is rare but can happen on PBS; 5 and 6 days are more realistic.
2b: on PBS, plan on about 15 days on and off total; but...
2c: in my dark days on PBS I was hit with several consecutive months of 17-days-worked; I think once or twice I got 19 days worked, and got wicked burnout. Better now.
2d: Yes PBS software is being re-written and the first rest run is coming up I think next bid cycle; one of the big upgrades is some semi-self-learning function where the computer "knows" how badly it screwed you. In the old system, it would say "I'm sorry, I can't give you your bid of 14 days worked, so all bets are off" whereas the new system should know that "I can't give you 14, so giving you 15 is bad, and if I give you 16 days I really messed up" or at least that's how it was explained to me. Guess we'll see.

7/7 might come up on conversation, mostly about Instructor Pilots or Check Airman who have their schedule custom-written by the fleet chief and that does not pertain to new-hires.

Hope that helps - maybe I just muddied the water even more.

Brooklyn99

I don't follow this line of thought - doing 8/6 does not pertain at all to ILC or DRL positions/progression. It does not help your seniority or company standing at all. DRL is seniority/date of hire, ILC is interview only. And none of the incentive programs mention 8/6...like at all.

FRAC

All IP’s and CP’s in red label programs do their own schedules with their teams. I have a IP on my team and he’s never asked us to change our schedules for the company. Also with PBS you’ll never work more then 16 days unless you elect to fly a yellow line. It’s been awhile since I’ve done PBS but I always bid green lines and got 14/15 days on in the month. You can only get 4-6 days on if you live in a green base (a big hub or a place that has a FJ FBO). In red label we write our own schedules as a team. The only time it gets messed with by the company is during training cycles.

Ltsheets

So am I understanding correctly that you will know farther in advance what your schedule will be than the standard part 121 system where you find out the next months schedule only 2-3 weeks before that schedule starts?

AA717driver

Thats what it looked like to me. They gave us a bidding schedule for a year out and it looked like you bid a month and a half ahead of time. Definitely not like 121. Much more notice.

I’m more focused on learning memory items and flows…