Originally Posted by But seriously

My advice is mostly this:
It is unlikely that you will get a useful or accurate picture of how all this works from an internet message board. Feel free to keep asking specific questions, but I’d focus on the big picture:

Once you start you will have 2-3 months in Denver. Accommodations (mostly) accounted for. This should give you some time to arrange whatever accommodation you’ll need in your assigned base.

After that I’d budget for 4-6 months until you can get to your base of choice. It could certainly be less than that, but I’d make sure I have done plan that accounts that amount of time.

The only thing you truly need to show up on Day 1 having decided is the order of your preferences. You want 737, great. I’d still think through plans B-D. You want SFO, great. Still have an order of preference for the other bases.

You can figure out the rest as you go.



A lot of the stuff you are asking about is covered in the first week of Indoc. You might be the minority who doesn’t know what a Vacancy Bid is, but you wont be the only one. A decent amount of the people coming straight from the military have little to no knowledge of how airline scheduling or bidding works either.