I'm on the Airways side and commute from DFW to PHL. We have 5 non-stop flights on us per day (except for Sat).

When I sat short call, I was averaging around 7-8 nights at home per month. On probation (and under our old reserve rules), I would come up the night before, so that ate into a day off.

On long call (still on probation), there were times where Future would give me a trip that gave me an extra night at home, but I still would go up the night before if I didn't get one (just to be on the safe side). Now that I'm off probation, I do sit a home a little more often. I do this as long as I'm far enough down the list. When I'm close to the top of my bucket, I come into base.

There's a small window, that if called, I can't make it during the 10 hours (the window was larger when it was 9 hours).

Next month, I have my first Secondary. It's has 16 days off. Maybe 2-3 of the trips aren't front end commutable, so if I can't get anything off the bid sheet, I'll have to come up the night before. However, I'll definitely be home more.

Commuting sucks, but with our jumpseat system (which I pray survives), it does take some of the stress out of things. Hopefully, we'll work everything out before too long and I can be based at home.