Job Description

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.

PROS

• Pay is great and getting better.
• The longer you are with a company the better your QoL is as your seniority increases.
• Generous benefits such as 16% direct contribution to your 401k without you having to pay anything into it.
• Generally a simpler way to fly, very controlled and regulated. You show up to an aircraft and everything is prepared for you, and when you land, you leave immediately and you are done.
• When you are off, you are off. Flights are preplanned for you so you can relax when you are home.
• Majority day time flying, but it depends.
• Once you have a line, your schedule is pretty set and you can plan life events much easier.
• There are a lot of locations across the country to chose from as a domicile.
• A lot of companies have options to move to different aircraft over time, though it can be difficult to move aircraft with some companies.
• There are more job protections and representation with the airline unions.
• You have options of what QoL you want. Some companies, like Spirit & Allegiant, fly mainly out-and-back flights so you could be home every night if you chose a Low Cost Carrier (LCC) and live in domicile.
• In the recent past, you were able to hop flights with your family all over the place (This is much more difficult in the current market). Currently, trying to find even two seats open on the flight you want can be difficult, but it is still possible. Many pilots rack up Hotel and Airline points and then travel around with their family in that way.

CONS

• Upgrades to Captain could take years depending on the economy and the company. In the current market (2023/24), you can upgrade in a much shorter timeframe.
• You could be flying multiple legs a day for the narrow body crews and very long trips for the wide body crews.
• You live your life in airports, traveling through TSA and eating airport food.
• You will probably fly to the same locations over and over again.
• You may never fly with the same crew twice, meaning you are always going through the same conversations every flight.
• It is difficult sometimes to make lateral moves to different aircraft because that requires retraining.
• You are potentially gone often (typically 15+ days a month which often adds up to half the year or more away from home.
• Reserve is a hard life unless you live in domicile.
• If on the later end of the seniority list, you are always at risk of being furloughed or to lose your job if company needs to downsize.
• You carry passengers and passengers are emotional and unpredictable and can be very irritating and time consuming to deal with, unless your Flight Attendants handle everything for you.
• Some companies starting pay is pretty low, but this changes on year two. The current job market pay is increasing as all companies are renegotiating their contracts.
• Depending on the company, you may have to pay out of pocket for a crash pad or hotel if commuting.

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