The real issue is why does the company want them. Just my opinion but a virtual base, if enough interest allows them to grow, open and close it whenever they want. A permanent base requires an advanced entitlement, training, possible displacing from other bases and big displacements from the base if it doesn’t work. With the massive amount of training this airline does you can’t blame them for trying to save money but for us it’s different. I totally get if you lived in Boston you would think this is great to drive to work. But you would never know where your seniority would sit, it could be awesome one month and crappy the next. Also, take msp for example, one month a bunch of flying leaves the base and next month it returns, could drop regular line holders to reserve, weekends off people to weekends and so on. Planned a.e’s and even realignments at least give time for families to plan.
It is not our fault the company has so many airplane types and I agree I believe this is a set up for future widebody virtual basing