[kellwolf]

Position: FO
Airline: Pinch-a-nickel
Years at Airline: 1 year and 6 months as of Dec 07
Gross Earnings: $25,788.98

I'll break that down for ya further. I flew about 7 hours shy of 1000 hours last year, and I got "bought off" of about 4 trips. So that's about 80 hours of flying I got paid for without actually flying. So, there's really not much I could have done to make any MORE money last year. I essentially got paid for flying roughly 1100 hours when all was said and done. Check this little tid bit out: If I had just flown my 75 hour guarantee, I would have made a whopping $19,664.10. That's GROSS folks, not counting taxes, union dues, insurance, etc. Factor in insurance and union dues, and it drops to $17,928 (still no income tax taken out on that figure, either). Some people count per diem as income, but I don't. It's not a set figure you can budget month to month. What happens if your company goes all day trips like the ATL flying? Per diem gets shot in the head. But for those figuring on that, I got $4,750.54 last year. That's about 3340 hours away from home, or on average 65 hours a week. So, for the hell of it, we could say I worked 65 hours a week on average. Take my gross pay, and I got $7.72 an hour if you figure being on duty as being at "work."

Conclusion: even at 2nd year pay, PCL FOs are VASTLY underpaid for the job they do. Those of you looking to take out those huge loans for JetU in order to get to an RJ, pay attention to those figures above and see if you can survive on that. There's also no guarantee that you'll be able to fly as much as I did, either.