Full Left Rudder:
Would anyone by kind enough to explain what the CAP hours actually means
How long have you got?
Putting it very very simply:
Everything a pilot does ( e.g. trips, Sims, ground training, leave) is assigned a work bananas amount, a.k.a. "credited hours ", which is not necessarily linked 1 to 1 with hours on the watch. For instance if you have Leave in a month it may have an Credited hours value of perhaps 15-20 credited hours, a days ground training might be 4 hours credited hours . The credited hours for a flying trip is usually, but not always, the sum of the flying hours, but there are clauses in the rules to give a minimum amount of credit per report, and also to provide protection if you end up with short sectors at either end of a very long layover.
Every month the schedulers work out the average amount of credited hours each pilot should do, the per capita, or "CAP", which is published at the start of the monthly bidding cycle. It's then down to the individual pilot to bid for work according, (or allow themselves to be rostered - Blindines), remembering that any leave, sims or ground training means they may have already have some credited hours that will count toward the monthly target of the CAP.
Next Week - the joys of banked hours, Nett Low Bidding and a module on Draft Assign
