Time to a blank line (mix of reserve and sched trips) and to lineholder status at SWA is fairly short at this time. In three years I’ve moved to a 50% spot in domicile with over 2000 new hires below me. I’m holding three-day trips with weekends off, drive to domicile (I rarely fly extra), and average about 105 trips a month credit.

We are presently heavy on reserves—I know FO’s that routinely pick up reserve blocks thru trades, don’t get called, and then fly extra trips on what would be a day off. They average 150 trips/month. There are ways to play the game as a junior guy!

In addition to in-base flexibility, we can also bid extra flying in any base, or trade trips out of base. This helps with reserve/new hires that are commuting to a junior domicile. For example, I would try to give away a trip and then pick one up at a much closer base.

We can also move domiciles without a seat lock (not including ETOPS yet). We have several FOs that summer in DEN and winter in PHX for example. Of course, at this time we have pretty steady vacancy bids every month so folks move around quite a bit.

As has been mentioned, somebody hired three years ago may experience a vastly different environment than someone getting on today. That goes for any airline.