Hub to hub commute to be a CA?

[OldTownPilot]

Say you lived in your base as a FO, however your base is more senior than others. The oppurtunity presents itself to upgrade in a different base.

Do you commute hub to hub to be a reserve CA, or stay in your origional base as a rather senior FO?

Just curious.

[Chris_Ford]

Depends what cities they are... LAX-ORD probably not but BOS-JFK I don't see why not. You'll take a QoL cut and it will suck while you're sitting on reserve but the upgrade in pay certainly offsets it. If you're at a major, it may not matter so much, but in a regional, you can start racking up that TPIC earlier too.

[kellwolf]

Living in base is so much better than commuting, I'd wait the extra couple of months until I could upgrade in base. Case in point, I'm still reserve in MEM. I could've been holding a line 2 months ago in MSP or DTW. I could probably upgrade faster in DTW, but then I'd be commuting and on reserve as a junior CA. Might as well wait it out in base so you don't have to pay for the crash pad while on reserve. Besides, I still need the hours to upgrade in the CRJ. Once I have those hours, I'll more than likely have the seniority to hold MEM when I upgrade. This is, of course, assuming that things stay the way they are now....

[MQAAord]

Depends on the commute.

I spent almost 6 months in 2002 commuting from IND to LGA/JFK. It was awful. I would not wish that commute on anyone. But, once we moved to ORD, the commute to NY was much easier. Once leg commute, no connections, etc. THAT was much more do-able.

Completely depends on individual circumstances.

[zmiller4]

Originally Posted by OldTownPilot

Say you lived in your base as a FO, however your base is more senior than others. The oppurtunity presents itself to upgrade in a different base.

Do you commute hub to hub to be a reserve CA, or stay in your origional base as a rather senior FO?

Just curious.

It's a personal choice. There's plenty of people who wait to upgrade until they can hold the base of their choice, and there's plenty of people who upgrade at the first opportunity. A ton of factors go into the decision, so it all just depends on the individual.

[Alchemy]

I may be facing a similair scenario in a few months....I would probably not commute but just move to the junior domicile.

At the regional level, getting the ATP and type paid for is worth too much to risk having the opportunity evaporate IMO.....you never know what will happen in 3,6,9 months....

[Bandit_Driver]

It all depends on what you want out of life and the job.

Do you need the money the upgrade brings?

Is it a relatively easy commute (e.g. seldom oversold, ground stops, etc)?

Do you need 121 PIC time?

Do you want to take the QOL hit?

Can you handle the reserve lifestyle again?

Those are some questions that you will have to answer for yourself. I personally would take the upgrade, as my ultimate goal is to work for a Major Cargo or Pax airline. Also, I have seen one guy bypass several upgrade classes for QOL reasons. When the airline was sold he took a beating in the merger and pay because he wasn't a captain. Even though he had Captains above and below him he was treated different. The CA's got one deal and the FO's got another (yes the union signed off on it).

[kellwolf]

I'm looking down the barrel of this decision in about 2 or 3 years. The commute from MEM to DTW would SUCK. Most of the time they DH me up there, I wouldn't have made the flight if I hadn't been positive space. Add to that it's a mainline a/c, so someone else in the same situation at NWA would bump me right off, it gets even tougher. As far as the money, more money is always good, as is the TPIC time. I personally wouldn't be willing to take the hit on the QOL with my wife and kid, and reserves here get slapped around pretty badly. DTW also has a huge amount of highspeeds (CDOs, stand ups, whatever you wanna call them), so the junior CAs would be getting those. MEM, on the other hand, has very few of them. The way I see it is if PCL can make it through the next year or so unscathed, I SHOULD be alright with waiting the extra months to upgrade and stay in MEM. Otherwise, I'll be worrying about it elsewhere....

[Doug Taylor]

Depends. But "commuting to reserve" will eat up you schedule flexibility, quality-of-life and extra cash quicker than you can say, "Great googly moogly, I've just destroyed my life and wrecked my marriage".

If you can hold a line, sure, but I wouldn't wish the absolute hell of commuting to reserve on my worst enemies. I really don't have any enemies, but if I did, I certainly wouldn't wish it upon them.

[Maximillian_Jenius]

Originally Posted by Doug Taylor

Depends. But "commuting to reserve" will eat up you schedule flexibility, quality-of-life and extra cash quicker than you can say, "Great googly moogly, I've just destroyed my life and wrecked my marriage".

If you can hold a line, sure, but I wouldn't wish the absolute hell of commuting to reserve on my worst enemies. I really don't have any enemies, but if I did, I certainly wouldn't wish it upon them.

I thought that one couldn't commute to reserve. How would you do it if you're in say Seattle and you're based in CVG? I'm aware there are alot of different callouts. But you couldn't make it to base in 1-4 hrs. An 8-24 hr. call out well yea...

[Chris_Ford]

Originally Posted by Maximillian_Jenius

I thought that one couldn't commute to reserve. How would you do it if you're in say Seattle and you're based in CVG? I'm aware there are alot of different callouts. But you couldn't make it to base in 1-4 hrs. An 8-24 hr. call out well yea...

You commute to a crashpad.

[kellwolf]

Originally Posted by Chris_Ford

You commute to a crashpad.

There ya go. Now, this will work assuming a few factors: your airline actually has commutable lines, you can afford the added cost of a crashpad (oops, there went that CA raise), and you don't mind losing precious days off to commute (reserves here only get 10 days off a month). So, figure in the lost days off to commuting, and you'll probably wind up with MAYBE 5-4 days off a month if you've got a decent commute.

[zmiller4]

If you can hold a line, sure, but I wouldn't wish the absolute hell of commuting to reserve on my worst enemies.

It's true! Commuting from Tucson to Miami on reserve was the dumbest thing I've ever done. Two legs/5hs total each way and fighting for seats on oversold flights with literally dozens of other non-revs and jumpseaters was really not fun at all.