I think he's referring to how some of us had to commute when we were new hires 30 years ago. I commuted MIA-BOS for my first year, mostly on Eastern's jump seats. Delta didn't' allow us to use the jump seat for commuting until 1996, and back in the 1980s', you got one S3 pass first year as a new hire, 2 per year your second year, etc. until you had completed 5 years, then you got unlimited passes... for a $8 fee, each leg. In about 1992, the company doubled the fee to $16 per leg. The union grieved it and won, I got a check for about $178 after commuting BOS-CVG for a year, paying the doubled fee.


BUT... back in the mid 80's-90's, we had so many small bases spread around the country there were not too many commuters. We had pilot bases at (in no particular order) BOS, MIA/FLL, ORD, IAH, DFW, MSY, PDX, and I'm probably forgetting a few.

About the only guys who commuted were senior Captains trying to increase their final average earnings in their last 3 years, and they did that by commuting to ATL to fly the L10-11 to Europe.

I've been commuting from MCO to ATL and NYC for the past 19 years, it's do able but it's very busy too. If you are not on the phone booking your seat at T-0, it will be booked by someone else, no doubt. MCO to JFK you have Jet Blue for a backup, and they have saved my bacon a couple times.

As you've seen many of the NYC MD88 trips are 'uncommutable' due to early sign in and late releases. So pick your poison carefully.