The schedules for the DC-10 at Gemini tend to be 36 reserve lines of 19 days on (in a row of course) and roughly 11-13 days off. The "book" says we will all have a minimum of 11 days off at home, but that has not always held true. The MD-11 bubbas appear (just looking at a bid package) to have 23 hard lines with 19 days on and about 11-13 days off, and 3 reserve lines with the same. Why us DC-10 guys don't have any hard lines is a question that has puzzled us all for many moons.
I don't have the current pay plan in front of me, but as I recall, first year FO's start at $36K guaranteed (65 hrs/mo), but this can go up depending on any overtime. The move to 2nd year is somewhere around 40%. Gemini crews aren't the lowest paid in the business -- we aren't nearly the highest paid -- but boyhowdy are we ugly!
Gemini aircrews are all home-based. However, we tend to do a majority of our flying out of the typically large ports (KLAX, KJFK, KMIA, PANC, etc). So a guy knows pretty much where he will be going in a typical month. With the type af business we do (ACMI) we leave from just about everywhere and go to just about everywhere.
Funny you should ask about upgrades.... There is a class upgrading to DC-10 Captain as we speak. The plan (from what I have read) is to upgrade 7. These are the first upgrades in over 2 years. There has also been about 5 FE's upgrade to FO (3 to MD-11 FO and 2 to DC-10 FO). These FO's that are upgrading are about 4th or 5th year employees. These guys upgraded a little more than a year ago. I do know that there are still some FE's wanting to upgrade, but the majority are PFE's. There has been no word of further upgrades for CA or FO.
As it has been in the past with Gemini (and most others as well), personal recommendations carry a lot of weight. Right now the only person doing the hiring is the CP. In the past, the Chief FE was doing a considerable amount of work in that area and was more receptive to the idea of hiring some guys without recommendations. As far as where to send a resume, I can PM a name and address for those truely interested.
As a side note, we voted in ALPA representation last June, and our negotiating committee is hard at work. The Company (of course the Association agreed) has said that they want to have a contract nailed down by the end of the year.
Hope this helps.