Time off?

One important part of any job is "time off." Even if you love your job, it's important to have time to yourself and time with friends/family. This job, is certainly no different.

So, what's it like trying to get certain days off when being a regional airline pilot? Well, it depends. No, no not the diapers. However, that said, if you're new to the company, you'll feel much like a diaper when trying to get certain days off. Anyways, the reason is because everything in terms of your quality of life as an airline flight crew member depends on "seniority." Let's take a closer look at just what that means.

You may very well show up for work dressed in a shirt, jacket, slacks, tie, and stupid hat. You have all the appearance of a full-on salaried company employee. This of course, is purely an illusion. You are an hourly employee. You are a contract laborer. Here, this means, you will "bid" for your schedule each month. Yes, each and every month you spend as a line pilot, you will be trying to get a schedule that you want and then you'll have to wait and see if you get it. The schedules to choose from will also vary month to month based on the needs of the company. Sound archaic? Yeah, it is.

Each month, the company will publish a "bid package" for the pilots. The bid package for you will contain all the "lines" or schedules available for your position (Captain/left-seat or First Officer/right-seat) in your aircraft.

The same process is used to determine who gets vacation, and when. This system heavily favors the more senior pilots. Why? There's two reasons why this is true. 1.) They are more senior so if they bid for the same week of vacation that you do, it will go to them before you. 2.) They have more vacation time each year. Statistically, you are more likely to bid against them than someone more junior to you. And, since they are more senior, you will always lose. This means you can pretty much count on working during Xmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, etc, if you are pretty junior. These are the issues when pilots talk about "quality of life."

There are two ways to bid for your vacation time. At the end of each year, there is a vacation bid for the next year. Yes, the entire next year. So, if you want to put in for the family vacation over the Xmas holiday, then you will have to bid for that in December the PREVIOUS YEAR! If you get awarded what you bid for, fine. Now, you have that whole year to make plans, buy tickets, make reservations, etc. If you don't get it, there is one other chance. Each month, when you bid for your next month's schedule, you can also bid for vacation time that next month. So, you can bid for your family vacation time in November. If you get it then, you'll be paying much higher airfare and other costs due to the last minute nature of your plans now. However, if you take the chance to book those things ahead of time, and then you don't get awarded that time off when you bid for it, well, now you're just screwed. Yes, you can call in sick, but that is technically against company policy, and if you do that more than about 2 times in a year, you'll find yourself in the Chief Pilot's office trying to keep your job.

Lets say you got hired with your regional carrier in the summer or fall. Fine. You will not have "acquired" much vacation time yet because you only have a few months service with the company. So, you will NOT be able to bid for any vacation (for the next year) come December that first year. So, you will have less than a week of vacation to use, while the most senior guys will have 5 to 6 weeks of it, and likely more since they will have rolled-over a couple weeks they didn't use the year before. And, you can only attempt to bid for your vacation a month ahead of time through year. Good luck. If any of the senior pilots put in for vacation when you do, they'll get it, you won't.

Now, to be fair, there is actually a third way to get time off that you want. If you do not or cannot get time off for an event you know of a year ahead of time, and you don't get awarded your vacation the previous month when you bid for that, you can try and find a line in the bid package which will have days off that you need. You might very well sacrifice other factors you desire, but at least you might get the days off that you need. However, as before the likely hood of getting what you want is smaller the more junior you are.

So, in summary, your first year or so, don't count on any vacation. In fact, you're better off not using it at all, and rolling it over to the following year. By then, you will have gained at least some seniority, and you will have enough that you can bid for larger chunks of time off.

Welcome aboard!