Originally Posted by
Dragon7
Congrats and welcome! Lots of good suggestions on various places but it can't be repeated enough that commuting makes this a full time job. But if you are going to try commuting, and i did for the first two years because of dash 3 finishing HS, find some friends or make some friends to crash pad with who are in the same situation so you can learn the game. United Reserve has a lot of gamesmanship and rules. You are almost never going to have a reserve period where you don't get at least a short call. So you are going to commute at least 3-4x a month. You can bid 6 day reserve blocks but others senior to you have the same opportunity. You have the first day nothing before 1000LBT rule, or you can pick up a later shortcall or you can aggressive pickup a later show. But if you do that you can get to base and sit in the Crashpad or get sent on a late returning 4 day. Not bad if you are in a 5 day reserve period and go back to long call, but not great if you are done or in a 6 day reserve period. A bit complex to start, but critical if you want to have any quality of life on days off not looking at the loads on employeeres. i commuted DFW-IAH for two years, and drove 90% of the time. It got old, but less stressful than the OJ running through airports commuting to reserve show. Be aware of very unpredicatable weather slow downs in SFO.
Bottom line move to a driveable to base location.
Again congrats and welcome.
Not to dog hump this, but he brings up good points with reserve rules. Commuting from HI guarantees you'll have to redeye in the night prior at the latest, day prior to be safe. On probation being out of position is not a game you want to play.
I commuted to reserve in EWR from the west coast for a bit, and averaged 8 days home a month. You'll be doing the same distance/time zones, with far fewer options and much much more competition (lots of vacation travelers, you'll be junior to most of them). Best advice would be to try it for a few months, see how it works out, go from there. QOL doesn't get any better than living in base however. Driving to work, and commuting are two entirely different jobs.