kansas

No problem...open time is the time that does not fit into any of the normal lines for the month. At most places, one can "pick up" this open flying on their off days, or tack it on to the beginning or end of their day (provided flight/duty time regs. are not violated, of course). My argument for open time is that if you're going to work on your days off, you might as well save the hassle of keeping two bosses happy, and build more flight experience.

At Great Lakes, everything is based off of the day you pass your checkride, not sure how it works at SkyWest.

JetJock16

Yes, you can drop your line down to about 57 hours if you want. Any lower and your not eligible for benefits. Also understand that when you put your flying up on the drop board it will not be dropped off of your schedule until somebody picks it up. You're also able to drop partial trips, like the first leg or the last; this is beneficial if you’re a commuter and can only make it home or to work one the first or last day of your trip if you’re able to lose that leg.

If you drop flying and it takes you below your monthly guarantee then you're only guaranteed what you work seeing that you voluntarily dropped below that mark.

Open Time is flying that is left over after PBS has built all the lines. Usually if an airline is properly staffed there won’t be much (they like of keep a little) Open Time but if you’re short pilots, like we are, there will be a lot of Open Time seeing that we don’t have enough pilots in some domiciles (Bases) to fly all the flying. For April, PBS wanted to create 305 lines in SLC but we only had 294 pilots, absolutely no reserve pilots that month and a lot of Open Time. If you pick up Open Time you are usually paid at 150% of your hourly rate.

Your one year mark is your hire date which is the first day of ground school. If you’re in the May 7th class then that will be your date for your annual pay increase. This is also the date when your one year seat lock is lifted. Understand that if the company needs something they’ll break your lock at anytime. Most of the Bro pilots are having their seat locks broken around 9 months. Although as staffing levels return to normal you can expect SKW to stop breaking seat locks.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck!

DitchDog

Awesome info guys....thanks