1. They buy you a ticket to wherever you need to meet the plane. We have a 22 hour deadhead limit, but that excludes "gateway travel." Any domestic travel to/from your gateway (homebase) is considered gateway travel and is not counted towards the 22hr deadhead limit.

I will say this, and maybe someone will try to say I'm full of it, but I've only been traveled in excess of 20 hours 3 times in the last 2 years. True story.

2. When we're busy, plan to leave day 1 and come home day 18. 36 consecutive days are possible in theory, but I've never seen it on a 2 month bid before. So what I'm saying is that it's unlikely. At the rate we've been hiring you'd probably be senior enough within a few months to have to worry about this too much. It's possible to go home if you're stateside and on reserve, but it's risky business. We're generally on a 12 hour call out when on the road, so that leaves little time to jumpseat back into position.

When we're slow it's realistic to get several "free" days at home on 12 hour call out. I was on the road 4 days in January, 9 in February, 8 in March, and 6 in April. Also a true story. And that includes travel days.

3. It's hard to say. We're busy now and you'll probably work a lot. Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason as to how the bids go. A couple months ago, a split 1-month line went to the most junior captain.. Which is strange because they usually go super senior. Basically it's a tough question to answer, as I've been here 5 years and I still can't figure out why people bid what.

Hope that helps out some.