Originally Posted by
Cozmo
So if the nearest one of those is 4 hours away, you start your work week with a 4 hour drive?
There are at least a couple pilots in my area that work at these places. It seems unlikely that they’d be doing that, but I guess it’s only a couple times a month if you’re on 7 and 7.
Do bases get added at all?
The short answer is yes, you start your tour with a 4 hour drive and frequently you'll have to drive up the night before. And your 1st day brief isn't final until 6pm, although you'll see the tentative plan earlier in the day. Early shows are fairly common on day 1 so they can get u to the jet and get some flying out of you. But you will get lots of hotel points and can use those to pay for a room.
I'm not clear on how the basing works for new hires vs. legacy pilots, maybe some others can comment on that. But I know that domiciles/bases get added when airline service meets the min criteria and then they get dropped when the airline service changes. 95% of our pilots live within a 2 hour drive of a base. The only pilot I flew with that lived further away was a dual citizen who lived in the Canadian Rockies with his photographer spouse. He had to drive about 4 hours to Spokane to catch his airline.