Turbosina

I've been reading every word on all these threads with intense interest since I have my interview later this month. Got a couple of questions on schedule, QoL, etc., and wanted to see if my understanding is correct:

1. What are min days off for reserves and lineholders?

2. As far as I can tell, you all work fewer days than at most other shops, but when you're at work, you're working hard (as in, SWA seems to load up workdays with more legs and block hours, more so than other carriers.) But on the flip side, you're at work fewer days than at many places. Is that an accurate assessment?

3. What's schedule flexibility like? We have literally zero flexibility at my current shop because everyone in my seat is already assigned max days per month, so even putting lots of $$$ on a trip won't help because nobody can pick anything up, ever. I keep hearing that SWA is one of the better airlines for schedule flexibility, so would love to hear more. I would be living in base (OAK) so it would be relatively easy for me to trade trips with other pilots.

4. As a junior lineholder in OAK, how hard is it to hold Hawaii trips?

5. Oakland employee parking: To ensure all four wheels are still on my car when I return, would you recommend I leave an a) Doberman, b) pit bull, or c) German shepherd in my car, so as to cause the would-be thieves to rethink their target selection?

Me personally, I'd rather be at work fewer days, but don't at all mind working my tail off when I'm at work. (I am not a fan of 4-hour airport sits like the ones I'm doing this month, nor of sitting around all day in the 2-star hotel du jour because the trip is a series of minimum days with not much flying. I would much rather come into work, fly a bunch, and get more days off.) Everything I've heard seems to indicate that SWA would be a good match for that.

(And yes, I know about the current pay rates. But every sign seems to be pointing towards a vastly improved contract being ratified in the near future, so I'm kinda removing pay rates from my consideration factors...)

Thank you for any enlightenment you can offer

123AB

Thank you for taking the time to write out these questions. They are exactly what I'm curious about too. Watching closely!

PreciousCargo

Thanks for positing this OP. I hope more people chime in with experience that can enlighten us.
I’m wondering these exact questions minus the OAK criteria. Good luck 😆

Turbosina

Haha thanks! I did search this forum extensively, and really did read like 100 different threads, but couldn't find clear answers, so thought I'd brave the wrath of the Internet

Smooth at FL450

1. Reserve: 15 off. Lineholder:16-17 off
2. Yes accurate
3. Your mileage will vary depending how quickly you learn the system. Once off reserve, flexibility increases significantly especially if you are ok working weekends on occasion.
4. Not hard at all, especially with our trip trade system.
5. No issues in the employee lot. Just don’t stop anywhere on 98th or hegenberger or you will lose your stuff. Even in broad daylight.

Every new FO I’ve flown with recently has been very happy, mostly due to their schedule flexibility

e6bpilot

1. 15/mo for reserve, lineholders vary but typically have 16-19 days off depending on seniority.

2. I would say that is accurate for the most part. It varies with seasonal flying, line density, and manning. Days off are the currency of the realm, so the idea around here is to work us hard on our work days. The downside of this is that during peak flying seasons especially, the schedules are brutal and can be very fatiguing.

3. Reserve is not very flexible. In fact, I would say it's way less flexible than other places. The pay on reserve is good, though. No monthly reserve guarantee. Line holders have a lot of flexibility to move and add work days. It's a bit harder to drop days, but it can be done through monthly overlap conflict bidding, giveaways, and a few other tools. We have a tool called ELITT that allows us to trade trips on our schedule with trips in the open time pool for the month. This allows you to move things around, but it isn't a perfect free market type of deal. There are restrictions.

4. I'll let an Oakland person answer this, but from what I have seen, the Hawaii flying definitely goes junior since there is so much of it. The good trips definitely go senior, though.

5. I am not based there so don't know. I have heard way more complaints about Houston and Dallas car break in and outright theft than I have in the California bases, though.

flensr

Kinda but it's complicated. If you look at our awarded lines, yes. We fly fewer days but they're dense. What you don't always see is that because our pay rates have been lagging the industry forever, most pilots don't ever fly just their line. Yes you may get awarded a min-guarantee line with 18 days off but that puts you anywhere from 15%-40% behind peer pay for "flying your line". Fortunately at SWA It's relatively simple to add extra flying to your schedule which can take us up to and beyond the paychecks other pilots get at other airlines. But to do so, we end up flying more of those densely packed days. A SWA pilot merely flying his line will get paid less than our peers at other airlines. A SWA pilot who hustles and flies his butt off and plays schedule games to maximize pay while staying right at or under legality limits can often make more than a peer at another airline. But they'll be working their butt off to do so. So... yea. At minimum guarantee we fly fewer days, those days are longer, and our paychecks will be smaller. We can catch up, but then we're flying the same or more number of days and those days are still very densely packed.

Senior pilots can cherry-pick lighter workloads (managing block to pay ratio) and search out soft pay like deadheads, or "bid to chaos" looking for premium pay multipliers that result from re-routes and other changes that happen with flights in and around bad weather. You can just about double your pay for a 4-day if you pick up a trip scheduled into florida when a hurricane is about to hit and may spend a lot of time getting paid to sit in the back deadheading, for example. That kind of expertise comes with time and seniority. If you don't closely manage block time, we bump up against FAR limits right around 120TFP/month. If you manage block time by only picking up low-block trips, trips with DH legs, or bidding (and getting) premium trips, you can hit 140-150 TFP with fairly regular success. Graduate level schedule fiddling can get you 180-200 TFP/month but you're gonna work for it, both in time at your computer looking for high pay low block trips, commuting all over the system to get those trips, and an awful lot of time away from home working. But it can absolutely be done and some of our company execs are absolutely horrified that a pilot who is away from home 25 days/month can make more they get in base pay (not counting the usual exec bonuses). Somehow SWA execs think all we do is sit around and complain and magically we make double our minimum guarantee monthly pay. Our execs are almost all managers not leaders, and their attitude about scornfully demeaning our hardest working (and therefore highest paid) pilots is legendary.

RodeoGoatrope

I thought it was 85/87/89 tfp/month depending on 28/30/31 days in the month??

e6bpilot

That's just min guarantee and that applies to everybody every month no matter what.
Many carriers (and formerly SWA) work under a monthly reserve guarantee based on the number of reserve days you are scheduled that month. What they used to do is work you like rented mule right up to where your monthly pay bumps that guarantee and then sit you, so you would provide them with flying all month and then cheap insurance the rest of the month. It was a great system (for them). Now we work under a daily guarantee, which can actually make reserve pay quite well. It was definitely the biggest work rule improvement of the last contract.

e6bpilot

This is a great summary of how the cheese moves here. If it sounds weird and doesn't make sense, it will later. Just know that you can make good money here, but it requires some expertise and a line. You can make great money here, but it will be to the detriment of your personal life.