Originally Posted by
Airbrake
As the title says I’m a 717B living in DTW. I’m considering a change and a Captain I flew with recently said I’d be crazy to not bid NYC330B. I’d be 80% BES. His advice was to either bid/pickup trips that start with a DH, or drop my sched in NYC and rebuild it with OOBWS in DTW. Worst case scenario I commute (told myself I never would) which wouldn’t be terrible since the vast majority of NYC trips are commutable on both ends.
1) How bad is the DTW-NYC commute?
2) Should I expect to sit RES with several SC’s a month?
3) Wide report seems to show I could hold a line easily in Jan, what about the rest of the year?
3) I know OOBWS is somewhat frowned upon, is that strategy even feasible and if so will it upset people?
4) I assume trips that start with a DH will go Sr to me correct?
5) SWAG on when I could hold DTW outright?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Former DTW330B/Current 717A. Was this Captain a commuter? If so, keep in mind that commuters tend to downplay how bad their commute is becuase they've just grown accustomed to the rat race. There is no way I'd recomend a commute to anyone who has the ability to drive to work, not even for a WB. Dropping and picking up trips with DH days and/or OOBWS requires that staffing stays good enough for you to clear your schedule and you have a completely flexible schedule. Whether it's commutable on both ends or not, you still have to commute.
Using a hypothetical 1900 sign-in this week, instead of leaving an hour (or less) prior to sign-in, you're leaving 8 hours prior to sign it. To get it down to 8 hours, you're likely going through LGA and doing the JFK shuffle, which isn't terrible but still painful and costs. When I looked at NYC330 instead of displacing off the 330, I figured I'd spend and extra 24ish days/yr away from home. That assumed 4ish commutes/month, no bad weather, no hotel stays due to missed commutes and/or no extra cushion due to tight loads/JS. You really have to want an 8-10 hour fatigue-filled walk around Europe to spend nearly an extra month away from home per year.
1. Direct to JFK was always spotty because they used to only have 3 flights/day, all one RJ's. Looks like it's 4 now, with 50/50 RJ/mainline. Still, the infrequency likely means you're going through LGA to have the backup flight. It was usually pretty "easy," but that went to crap with the least bit of weather in the area.
2. Too many variables. On the WB, there is such a thing as too junior for reserve.
3. Unk
3 (number 2 lol). Who cares what people think of OOBWS, it's allowed and your right.
4. I lived on dropping my schedule and picking up trips that began/ended with a DH. At 90% it was relatively easy to do but I was doing that in-base and this was a few years ago, so my information is dated. I thought NYC had fewer 6 days, so it might not be as easy in NYC.
5. Unknown, but in my opinion, it's worth waiting over commuting to NYC.