Originally Posted by
Scoop
The OP brings up a great point. Take BOS for example on the 330. No Pilot base, so every time they have to break up a 6 day it adds a DH and usually a DH only day. That cost waaaay more than the Hotels. I think it has more to do with training churn. Paid moves are also a factor but these can be minimized by opening small and then growing. In base reserves as mentioned above also add to the cost so in any case it is a lot more complicated than it initially appears. I think at a certain critical mass it is cheaper to open a base but it is the start up costs and increasing training burden that seem to generate a lot of procrastination.
Oh yeah - there is also the fact that marketing is schizophrenic and we change equipment when the wind shifts. Just off of memory we recently had 777 and 747 Pilot bases at airports with zero flights on this equipment. IIRC we did it twice on the 777.
Scoop
I agree, but they don’t, look at how many 330/764 trips hit another crew base in the middle. JFK and ATL on the 764 have a large number of trips that overnight in the others base. But they still do it, despite how many get broken up. For non bases like BOS/CVG/RDU the options are limited, but across the other WBs it’s still prevalent.