Sure some of the airport hotels aren’t great, but they’re also not Ramada and Red Lion level of awful. My extremely short stint on reserve in summer 2019 saw me getting full trips to fill out my 2-3 weeks of reserve, and I got better 900 trips than the mostly 200 trips I could barely bid for and cling to a line. I’m not saying it’s going to be OBR at PSP or long DEN. What’s most likely going to happen is OBR to DTW, since that DVR seems to keep going unfilled. And if you get OBRd that far, I bet DHs are going to eat up most of your first and last day. That short layover was the commute hotel I used the most in DTW, it’s not bad. Even if it ends up being ready mixed with the usual bogus reserve flights, I would still take that over a 5am rap at home then fighting traffic in a 7am callout to do whatever abusive PHX CA stuff they’re about to do to you. I don’t fly with reserve captains here in PHX very often but they hate it so much. Not to say this OBR is a lot better, but I think it’s objectively better than the usual nonsense.

But essentially what I’m getting at is fat stacking new captains in their domicile of choice, obviously signals they will just farm you out as needed, where things are the most on fire, and you’re not just going to sit in the hotel for 5 days. Instead of trying your 3rd commute and just praying you get used, you’ll get flown out, lodged, and used.

I’m still clinging to my suddenly-amazing seniority in the right seat. We’ll see how it goes, but now that ULCCs are starting to call, every captain I know leaving for legacies, and most of my friends upgrading…let’s see what the next couple months hold.