Oh, yeah, things are horrible here.
We Flexjet pilots are so oppressed, we're not even allowed to use the Gregorian calendar.
First year FO pay is as you stated. The schedule is divided up by 28 day "months", which equals two pay periods. (Can you believe the audacity?) The "standard" pay is based on 17 days/month, but technically, you can work anything between 14 and 20 days. The average is right around 16. The most I've ever worked in 6+ years is 19, least is 15 and I know plenty of people who've done 14.
The PBS system is very controversial. It is the scheduling software we use for awarding schedules to crewmembers. Search my other posts for details, but essentially, it awards on and off days based on company needs and crewmember seniority. It is a little complicated to use, but the crew scheduling people are very nice and helpful. They will walk you through the process or place your bid for you if you need help. Most PBS complaints boil down to a combination of misundertanding the system and the limitations of the company. i.e., we have a finite number of crewmembers, concrete mins and maximums, and a schedule/demand profile that must be met.
Max days on is 6, min days on is 4. Max used to be 7, but that was unpopular and there was a lot of griping, so one day the MEC chairman sat down with the VP of Operations and they hammered out an agreement... wait a second, that's not what happened! What did happen is one day, based on crewmember feedback, management decided to do away with the 7-day lines. Min days off is 3. There is a reserve line now.
Overtime comes in two flavors: hourly and daily. Hourly is based on your daily rate and starts if you're on duty for more than 12 hours (which happens every day, of course.) Daily overtime is for volunteered non-scheduled work days, and is considerably more than whatever your particular daily rate is.
When you upgrade, you transition to the Captain pay scale at years of service minus one year. i.e. you have 4 years of service, you start your captain pay at 3rd year captain pay. That was also hard-won during intense negotiations.
You can live wherever you want, but you have to be in your domicile (TEB, FLL, DFW, ONT) and available for work on day one.
Flexjet is an excellent place to work. The equipment, crews, benefits, and pay is excellent. The management is also excellent, the assistant chief pilots and the Chief Pilot are all very approachable, swell guys. Scheduling can be a goat-rope sometimes, but it's the same with all the frax.
We are much busier than forecast/budgeted for this Spring/Summer, hence the big hiring push.
This job is really as fun or as horrible as you choose to make it. You can a.) do honest, hard work, give good service, get along with your fellow crewmembers and roll with the occasional disappointment, or you can b.) be miserable and make everyone hate flying with you. I'm happy to say that the majority here choose "a" and this is the best bunch of guys I've ever flown with, in any regard.
Re: Guys not passing the sim eval? What can I say, some people can't do V1 cuts in a jet-powered aircraft. Some guys can't take off, enter a holding pattern, or intercept an ILS without crashing either. That said, lots of people CAN do that stuff... so how unfair could it be?
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