Pinnacle Air Services

[FL410guy]

Sorry if this is repetitive, I just don't have the time to read this entire tread to get the answer I'm looking for.

Concerning this whole new perdiem that is going to happen with jetride. Which by the way will happen no matter what is said here. Opinions here doesn't hold much water. I know we are going to the debit card system that PA is now doing. Question is will we recieve the $50 a day rate on top of the $141 per diem rate?

Can a PA pilot confirm you are getting $50 on top of you $141 per diem rate? If so this would not be such a bad deal after all. Thanks

 

[macpilot]

I am Springdale based and have not heard of the debit card yet. Since I have started working here for over a year, we have always gotten the $141 (low rate) for per diem ( it covers hotel and meals). Additionaly you will get $50. The 50 is called day pay, it's given each time you spend the night away from home. Or for the ASG based crew it can also be anytime the flight goes beyond midnight.

However I have heard the 2 weeks on/off crews complain they don't get the day pay on their travel days. If you have any more questons or need clarificaton, please pm me or post it and I will be happy to ask Richard or Nelson for you.

I would like to know that if we do get the debit cards, will we still be able to keep the extra per diem $$$? not sure how that would work. Personaly I like to use my own credit card and get the airline miles. Maybe they will let us have the option.

I am curious to know how many of the jetride guys are going to accept the PA employment offer, and where are the jet ride planes bassed? It seems the JR guys know more about what going on that the PA pilots. But maybe thats just me.

 

[CFI4LIFE]

Far as I know alomst all JR pilots accepted the offer. A couple left for better jobs, but I'm not sure that was related in any way to this merger. We have planes based in Lancaster, PA, Bedford (I think, a 35), Birmingham, Dallas, Chicago, St Louis, Scottsdale, and Columbus. Had a 60 based in Ontario, CA and Columbus, but those are in prebuy now (as well as one in LNS) and the plan is to get replacement birds at those locations... priority being ONT. I think that is pretty accurate, anyone care to add?

 

[FL410guy]

I'm pretty sure you will be able to keep the extra dollars you don't use. I don't think thats a problem. I agree with you on using airline credit cards, that's the smart thing todo. It just that JR is talking up this whole perdiem debit card thing and hasn't mentioned the 50$ day rate. I'm going to mention this to management and see where it goes. Thanks

 

[TennLear60]

We get day pay for every day we are gone. Even travel days. It is paid to us in addition to our salary not with our per-diem. Haven't heard anything from our office about the "per-diem card" yet. I still get my per-diem by check in the mail.

 

[MNR]

I believe the extra $50 is basicly extra salery right? Its taxed etc. My guess is in the short term you will continue to get what you are getting now. In the long term they want to make things the same on both sides. Per diem as far as the PN guys would not change a whole lot except you would get a card which you could use at ATMs to pull the money out. Intead of sending you a check. So basicly its yours to do with how you please once its on the card from what I have been told. The per diem thing would affect us a bunch. Which is why I was asking about it. I am suprised more people from PN are not asking about changes that might come their way. If any of the PN pilot want to talk over the phone btw pm me and we can coordinate a time to talk.

None of the JR crews get extra pay for days they work unless they start a 2 week rotation early of finish it late. We swap on Tuesday/Wednesday so if your on a trip and it goes over JR pilots get $300 per day you are over or $300 a day if you come on early for a trip. The other option is to be swapped out on the airlines.

As far as the card goes it sounds like they are still working on the details. Most of the crews on the JR side have a different rotation than the PN crews (2 weeks on/1 week off). If I do an out and back day trip I currently get per diem ($36/$46) under the new system I would get nothing because I did not stay over night. I think PN crews would get $10 per meal period. They are trying to make the system scaleable i.e. will it work with 500 pilots, so the $10 per meal becomes more difficult to manage. They may do $141 for overnight days and $45 or something similar for day trips or for the last day of a multiple day trip (if you look at the IRS chart they are using the breakdown for low cities is $141 which equals $96 lodging and $45 Meal and incidentals) Its all still up in the air so we will see what they decide to do.

FL410guy, your right to a certain extent opinions expressed here don't mean much but by talking to PN crews here I can get information that allows me to make informed well rounded arguements for or againist certain policies that might be implimented by JR management. I think I have been able to make some good points to the DO about the per diem card because of the discussion here. Those things may or may not influence their decisions, we will see.

macpilot The JR guys know more than you because I think the JR management is doing a good job of keeping us in the loop. They have had 4 or 5 conference calls where pilots could call in and ask the DO, CP or VP questions and have them answered. I don't know about PN management but it sounds like the PN pilots might not be getting that kind of chance to interact with your CP and DO.

CFI4LIFE is correct about the bases, the bases that lost aircraft had managed aircraft. They do want to replace those first. They then would like to increase the number of aircraft at each base. Then possibily have more bases.

 

[FL410guy]

MNR I agree %100. We need to get informed with some constructive arguements and present them to management. From my knowledge there has been 0 talk about the 50$ the PN guys are receiving. We need to bring that up to our DO asap before they settle on a deal. That could be an extra 700bucks in my pocket every month. Let's get the word out.

 

[CFI4LIFE]

I have been told, and you know how that goes, but I was told that the 50 dollar day pay was kind of an offset to the lower salary the Pinnacle guys made. Kind of a way to raise income a little bit. Don't ask me why, just what I heard. It's probably just bad intel though. Can any of the Pinnacle guys comment on vacations, can you carry over time not used or get paid out each year for it? How bout holiday pay? Overtime (flying on a day off). You're schedule and crew swaps? I know a couple planes fly on a two week rotation with no real base, what about the rest? Also, they are saying we (JR) are going to switch to actually pilot monkey suits... do you have a vendor for those or just use any pilot shop? Also, heard we are going to have to cover the costs.. which blows since I have et to pay for a single uniform item that we currently wear. Anyway, just a few random thoughts that I had..

Have you all been keeping pretty busy?? JR or Pinnacle guys feel free to chime in. Just trying to get a feel for how things have been going.

 

[macpilot]

That dosent sound right to me because it's not fare to the ASG bassed crew, we only do a fraction of the overnights the 2 weeks on/off pilots do.

you get 100 for flying on your day off, there is holiday pay, unable to carry over vacation time. Uniforms come from "Tally Ho" in miami. It's 20 per paycheck untill it's paid off, all alterations, or repalcement uniforms are covered.

 

[starcheckdriver]

you get 100 for flying on your day off, there is holiday pay, unable to carry over vacation time. Uniforms come from "Tally Ho" in miami. It's 20 per paycheck untill it's paid off, all alterations, or repalcement uniforms are covered.

$100 for flying a day off! That's crap. JR PICs get $300 and the SICs get $250 for flying on days off. It is crap that you pay for uniforms too. How many paychecks does it take to pay for them at $20 a paycheck?