The company absolutely does care, now. We have more new hires than ever before, and it’s common place for new hires across the industry to commute and move to base later on in a career. Additionally, the fortress bases are super expensive to live at and pilots with free get to work options aren’t inclined to move there. Furthermore, there is less capacity industry wide with aircraft retirements during the pandemic; anyone commuting the last 5 years or more can definitely see the difference in 2022. Lastly, and here’s why the company cares most of all, 2 legitimate options and it’s a get out of jail free card, so you can pretend they don’t care, but it’s their responsibility to staff the equipment if commuters can’t get to work, without recourse either so long as everyone follows the contract. Add it all up, and that’s why the crew resources manager is talking about where pilots commute from now. Perhaps one day it will revert back to nobody caring, but right now they have to act because we can’t hire and train enough, let alone have extra reserves to cover for pilots who can’t make the commute.

As for FL base, it’s a no brainer now. Pilots are a hot commodity, and a FL base secures more of them.