1) It is the best flying job you can have, if you live in base. I am in my own bed almost every night. In the last 2 months, only 1 night in a hotel and that was due to an abnormal event. There are no scheduled overnights.

1a) 30 were hired in October 2007. All are now on line. As far as openings go, that is anybody's guess, but we typically hire in the fall.

2) I am DTW based but I think ORD is similar. You will either fly an AM or PM trip for the day. Am trip show early, go to some resort destination (CUN, PUJ, AUA), back home mid afternoon. PM show mid afternoon and do a FL turn, home around 2300. You can fly as much or as little as you want. We have PBS so you build your own schedule. Min of 65 hours. During the winter there is always open time to pick up.

3) People are very happy, especially if you live in base. We are feed every flight. Warm meal outbound. Sandwich and fruit tray inbound. Grievances do get filed and go through the normal process. They go both ways.

4) We have 2 planes that typically go to Europe for the summer months. This is one of the down sides. When the 2 planes leave there is a new base bid. ORD and DTW will each lose a plane and everybody system wide has to re-bid. There is the potential of getting bumped to another base during the summer. We have been told over and over that there will be no furloughs this year. It has been several years since they have done a seasonal furlough. Even if there is a furlough, everybody will be back in about 5 months.

5) Pretty standard airline stuff. Travel bennies start 6 months your hired. We do get a good deal on Apple Vacation resort, so that is very nice.

As far as QOL goes, there is nothing better in the 121 world. As long as you live in base. People that commute seem to be pretty happy as well.

Hope this helps.

N2F