Line and Sequence Examples

This is an example of a "line" The next picture we will take a look at what sequence 131 actually looks like when broken down

sequence 131 broken down by day

What it all means: Schedules

                Hey everyone, hope you are all having a good day. I am back in Oklahoma today after commuting home last night (future post on commuting to come). It’s a lovely 106 degrees at the moment but I still enjoy it better than the humidity of Miami. Today I wanted to take the time to talk about some common words or concepts that you’ll most likely see in a lot of my future posts. These can be confusing for someone that hasn’t been in the airline business, because of this I wanted to explain as much of it as I can now to avoid confusion later on. If you ever have a question or don’t understand something in a post feel free to email me a question or post it as a comment.

                First thing I want to talk about is “reserve” and what all it entails. Perhaps even before I get to that lets talk about schedules in general. For pilots and most other airline employees are schedules are built in 1 month blocks. So often times, especially if you’re not senior, you will have a different schedule every month. Normally about the middle of each month the entire crew base will bid on their “line” for the next month. Each line is an individual schedule. There are normally about the same number of lines there are employees in that base. Within a line it is broken down further into what are called “sequences”. A sequence is made up of, in most cases, a 2, 3, 4, or sometimes 5 day trips. I will post an example of a line and sequence at the end of this post. For the unlucky new guys that are at the bottom of the seniority list the “lines” are normally all picked by the time it gets to the bottom guys. Let me back track and also mention what “bidding” is, everything in the airlines is based off seniority with the company. The number 1 guy basically has his choice of any “line” that he wants. So he only has to bid on one line. However if your say number 30 on the list, you have to select 30 lines that you would like and you get whichever one   is left when it’s your turn, make sense? For the pilots that don’t get a line they normally end up on “reserve”.

                Being on reserve is basically what the name entails, were more or less “on call” to fill in for the line holders when they can’t make a flight. This can happen for a number of reasons like a pilot getting sick, being on vacation, or operational things like getting stuck somewhere due to maintenance or weather. At my airline, and most for that matter, there are two different types of reserve. There’s “RAP” which stands for Reserve Availability Period, this is a 2 hour call out. For example a pilot can be on RAP from 5AM to 8PM, he doesn’t have to be at the airport but if called by the airline he has to be at the airport ready to go within 2 hours. The other type of reserve is most commonly called “Ready Reserve” or “Standby Reserve”. This is an 8 hour period where a pilot has to be in uniform at the airport ready to fly at a moment’s notice. At my airline we have to ready reserve periods S1 which is 6AM-2PM and S3 which is 2PM-10PM.

                Seems like these posts always end up way longer then I have pictured in my head before I start writing so for now let’s leave it at that. That’s a good general overview of how the schedules work. In my next post coming shortly I will post an example sequence and give some explanation to it.

How it all started

                One of the most common questions I am asked is “what got you interested in aviation?” So before that question even comes up, I thought I would go ahead and give my answer to it as well as how I got to where I am today. Most of this post will be pretty detail free but I may go into further details about certain events in my training in later posts.

                For basically as long as I can remember I always have had an interest in just about any big machine. However planes and trains really stuck for whatever reason. My dad was a pilot for a period of time but it was long before I was born so I don’t really think that had a ton of influence on my love for aviation. My mom has a picture that I love to tell people about and for lack of a better explanation I credit it for my love of aviation. This picture, which I’ll have to find and post on here one day, shows me in a stroller holding a blow up Blue Angel airplane getting pushed around an air show. I don’t think I was more than a couple of years old. Since that seed was planted that day its grown into a true passion and now a career.

                When I was younger my family didn’t travel my plane very much. Seemed about every other year or so we would fly to our family vacation versus driving. All through my grade school years, flying to and from vacation was probably the highlights of the entire trip for me. I can remember not being able to sleep a wink the night before we were scheduled to fly out just from my pure excitement of getting to ride on a plane. The very first commercial airline flight that I can remember taking was from Greenville, SC to Dallas Ft Worth. I was 3 years old I think, my family was traveling to Oklahoma to look at houses for our upcoming move. It’s really weird the details I can remember from that trip. We were flying Delta and connecting through Atlanta. Even now I can remember exactly what type of aircraft we flew. We flew an EMB-120 Brasilia to Atlanta then a 727 to Dallas. On the way back I got to experience my first wide body airplane an L1011, I can even remember that it was coming inbound from Honolulu.

                I continued to be thrilled each opportunity I got to take a commercial flight. Starting at about 12-13 I discovered the PC game “Flight Simulator 2002” I played that game and its predecessors a ton all throughout my high school years (that’s a post for later). Around 15-16 years old I think my parents realized my passion for aviation wasn’t going away anytime soon.  They took me up to Max Westheimer airport in Norman and bought me my first “intro flight” with the University of Oklahoma. That was the day I first got to actually fly a plane. That sealed the deal for me. Later that year they told me I could start taking flying lessons at our local small town airport. (Plenty of stories for later) To speed things up in this post before it turns into a 1000 word essay, I soloed on January 1, 2006. I got my private pilot’s license that summer of 2006. After graduating high school in May of 2007 I went to the University of Oklahoma where I got to fly my first plane. I completed their 4 year aviation management degree graduating in December of 2010. While at the University I obtained all of my licenses through CFII. I worked as a flight instructor for the University from August 2010 to March of 2011. In March I got hired by a regional airline which is where I am today.

                Again I know that last part was rushed but as promised at the start of this post I will go into details about each step down the road in later posts. For now I better get some sleep just incase my airline does decide to call me to fly at 7AM.

Welcome!

Hey everyone, welcome to my blog! This is new to me so well just sort of see how it goes. I wanted to start a blog of my career as an airline pilot to share with other people. I know when I was a teenager I loved reading about pilots life’s and getting to know a little more about the everyday life of an airline pilot.  Also I thought this could be a good way for my family and friends to get an idea of what my career is like. Those who know me personally know that I’m not the most talkative person in the world unless I get on a rant about something. The problem is most of the time I’m feeling really talkative there’s nobody around, so having this blog will hopefully give me a chance to get all those thoughts down on “paper” for people to read later. Yeah I know sounds sort of sad but whatever. I plan on keeping most of the posts on here related to aviation but don’t be surprised to see some random subjects come up as well. Again like I said in the start I’m just going to see where this goes. So whether you’re a young inspiring aviator like I was, part of my family and friends, or just a random blog follower, welcome aboard and enjoy the ride.