Originally Posted by
highfarfast
... trying to keep awake on the way home from a long day. On the way TO work is easier. Your likely tired when flying with another pilot that will help with your alertness. On the way home in your car, you’re tired by yourself.
That said, if I had a flight option, I use it as often as possible. I don’t drive the 3 hours of my commute often because flying is possible most of the time.
Plus, Southern is positive spacing him to CVG. No brainer. It’s not like it’s a regional 4 on 2 off schedule where you have to lose half of your 2nd off day to commute back to base and get a hotel. If you could be home for a week or two at a time, losing that half a day for a transcontinental commute with a confirmed ticket isn’t even a blip. Road warrior frequent flyer business travelers do that kind of stuff several times a week.
I guess a few issues could exist that I wouldn’t like. For example, I live in PHX and there aren’t any nonstops to CVG at the moment (I think DL used to do one a day, but it looks like ATI is the only one right now). Obviously that’s not ideal. So a route reduction or cut would suck. If I lived 2-3 hours from CVG and my flight was cut, then it’s a wash because the drive time is going to be the same as airport/park/security/flight/deplaning/get to the cargo terminal. Also I don’t know what time the trips start, and how early they book your arrival. If you fly 3 hours across the country and then have an hour to change into uniform and show, I guess that’s not bad. If you fly in from across the country, have 5 hours till show, and show time is midnight, that’s rough. So I think that would be the big deciding factor for me as well. Ties into your driving end fatigue comment. I guess if you had a long drive home and you’re tuckered out, maybe on can go nap in a crew room before the drive. My commute home got me in between 2300 and 0000, but I had a 4 hour flight to nap and then a quick 30 min drive home.