I don't mean to sound nonsympathetic to the plight of the commuters. I for one said to myself that I would never commute. The trips in NYC (non ER/777) aren't commutable. It is a horrible life.

Originally, I am from NKY. I tried to get CVG during indoc, but the last CVG slot went to the guy to my left. Oh, he was my sim partner and HE QUIT during sims. So yeah, I understand bad deals. I decided to move into base and really it hasn't been that bad. The driving is just damn near unpredictable. So unpredictable, when I was on probation, I would leave 4-5 hours before a showtime just to make sure I was there. Or, if I was on SC reserve, I drove into the city and was pretty much on site.

I think you are right. NYC is going grow ... possibly EWR as well. We have several NWA jets that overnight in EWR. I would imagine that those lines will switch to EWR based flying instead of the company paying for expensive hotels in the NYC area.

If we let the company decide which airport we have to cover, how is that going to work? What if all of the reserve pilots that day have crash pads near LGA? See, that problem affects them too.

I think the situation could be resolved as follows. Negotiate a taxi for callouts to JFK and EWR (737 and MD88 folks). Likewise for ER or 777 guys, you get a taxi if you are called out to LGA or EWR. This would be permitted as long as you were in position to report to one of the three bases.