Squawk Ident - an Aviation Podcast · Av8rTony

Flight 148 - Time is Money

·1 hr 58 min·5 clips

Roger says corporate aviation exists because executives buy back time, not seats, and accounting can never make it look profitable.

Flight 148 opens with disclaimers before Aviator Tony sets the scene: aviation stories, career paths, professional pilot life, the recording date, and the Southern California studio. The conversation takes a few turns before the work begins. Captain Roger is part of the planned discussion, Terry may join from Greece, and Tony tees up the aviation job hunt, perimeter flights, and a final flight west. Then the excerpt gets into the money-and-time side of airline scheduling. Reserve is not treated as dead time. Tony explains why pilots with more seniority may still bid long call or short call if it gives them more control, fewer calls, or hours they can actually use. Seniority changes the month before it even starts. A line holder gets a block of flying, usually around 72 to 82 hours, while reserve has its own guarantee system. Vacation makes the puzzle messier. Tony says he may be fuzzy on the exact numbers, which almost proves the point: airline schedules are hard to explain from the outside. November gives him a concrete example. He has just learned he is back on long call, apparently because enough senior pilots held lines for the holidays. Roger answers from memory, bringing up the older version of line bidding, and the chat stays lived-in instead of turning into a policy lecture. The outro is pure Squawk Ident housekeeping: AviatorTony.com, the address in the radio alphabet, archives, flight-line photos, the yearly Zoom bill, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, the pilot shop, the guest book, thanks to listeners, and the dirty-side-down goodbye.

As heard by us

A grounded airline discussion about scheduling, seniority, reserve life, and the tradeoff between time and control.

Flight 148 spends most of its time on the practical side of airline life: scheduling, seniority, reserve duty, long call, vacation months, line bidding, and the tradeoff between hours and control.

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Why you'd press play

You want the pilot version of schedule math, aviation job hunt talk, and a final-flight reflection.

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