What Does Life Flying For The Major Airlines Look Like?
Scheduling and Quality of life (QoL) are fairly similar between the Legacy airlines and most Low Cost Carriers (LCC). Legacy airlines include United, Delta, American, Alaska, and Hawaiian. Low Cost Carriers, or Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCC) are those such as Southwest, Jet Blue, Spirit, Allegiant, Frontier and others.
Depending on the type of aircraft you will be assigned and whether you are living in domicile or commuting will determine the QoL you will be living. You can opt to fly the shorter/narrow body/CONUS routes on aircraft such as the Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s or you can fly the long haul/Wide Body/OCONUS routes via aircraft such as the Boeing 757/767/777/787 or Airbus A350. From hiring to day one, it could be 2-6 months depending on the backlog in training.
Training
Training is typically accomplished at a company training facility that takes 1-2 months to complete. After training, you will bid initially for your ideal base and depending on the airline, what you are assigned could be determined a number of ways. Some companies are known to use the last-4 of a pilot’s SSN or they could go by age, birthdates, by training performance, etc. to determine the ranking order for handing out base assignments and your initial seniority numbers. It is likely that you may not get your first choice for your first domicile, which may lead to commuting the first year until you gain seniority and are able to move. NOTE: In the current market, pilots are seeing their preferred domicile right out of training, or they are reassigned within only a couple months.
Next, you will likely complete your Initial Operating Experience (IOE) which is a minimum number of hours, 25 or so, with a Line Check Airman (LCA).
Seasoning
After training, most companies work towards consolidation which is an FAA requirement of 100 hours of line operated flight time within the first 120 days ( CFR 121.434 ). Then for the remainder of the year, you will be under a probationary period where you are awarded less job protections because the company is evaluating and monitoring your progression. Once you complete your first year, your job is essentially safe and you can begin to relax a little.
Flying Reserve
After learning the aircraft initially, you can expect to be put on Reserve where you are essentially on standby to be called if needed. During that time, you must remain in domicile where you are assigned, or very close to it, until that reserve schedule is completed. The reserve schedule could last 7-10 days at a time and some kind of living accommodation (a crashpad or hotel) may be necessary if you are not living in domicile. You could fly the majority of the time on reserve or you may be fortunate enough to not be called much (and still be paid), but these days, pilots sitting reserve are being utilized quite often.
Biding Your Schedule
When you are not sitting reserve and you don’t have an assigned line yet, you will bid for the days you want to fly. After the more senior pilots receive the bids they requested, you will get what is remaining for your schedule. You may not receive your schedule until the last week of the month prior. This can make it difficult to plan things out more then a month.
You could also be assigned as a relief pilot if you’ve been assigned to the wide body or international flights. Flights that last 8 or more hours will typically have a relief pilot or two on board to augment the assigned crew that has been scheduled to fly for extended hours.
Being a Line Holder
Being a line holder means your schedule becomes more consistent, and you generally get more days off in the month. You also may be able to trade with other pilots to free up days you would like to have off.
Eventually, It will be your turn to be assigned a line and then your schedule should be fairly fixed while you fly that line. Attaining a line in the past took years but in the current market, pilots are earning a line in a matter of months. For the narrow body aircraft, schedules might looks like 3-4 days working and then off for the remainder of the week. This is repeated weekly with approximately 15 or so days flown within a month. Some companies may keep you on the road, living out of hotels on your work days or you could fly for a company where you are home each night, it is completely dependent on the airline you chose.
Wide body aircraft schedules include much longer trips but you generally fly less often because you meet your hours requirements sooner, flying much longer International trips, verses someone flying 1-4 hour sorties at a time.
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