Originally Posted by RJSAviator76

Let me share something I heard from a retiring pilot about the cost of commuting. Most people look at commuting costs as hotels and crashpads. It's a defensive mechanism because the true costs are much, much higher.

As a commuter, how many uncompensated days do you spend flying to or from your airline job? At Southwest, it's roughly 4 days a month if you only fly your line. Some can be more, some less, but let's stick with 4 days. At Southwest, our average daily guarantee is 6.5 TFP.

A pilot who lives in domicile gets essentially 4 more days at home each month than a commuter. Should that pilot choose to work those 4 days only getting ADG, here's how the math works out to be:

2nd year FO at current rate of $103.27 x 26 TFP = $2,685 per month.

4th year FO at current rate of $126.92 x 26 TFP = $3,300 per month.

7th year FO at current rate of $148.95 x 26 TFP = $3,873 per month.

12th year Captain at the current rate of $231.54 x 26 TFP = $6,020 per month.

Mind you, these figures do not include per diem, your 15% NEC contribution, or your profit sharing. All combined, you can add another 26-27% on top of that figure. Now multiply those figures over the course of your career, don't even bother with compounding or adding future contractual raises, but the difference over the course of one's career is well in the 7 figures depending on your age.

Commuting is EXTREMELY expensive over the cost of one's career.