Originally Posted by
deltabound
I think the fear is that the company will expect you to comply with the "hypothetical" new regs. As a practical matter, that might mean you need to live in base. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation for any employee.
I commute because I must, and I despise it. Any rule change along these lines requiring an even earlier effective show time will absolutely destroy QOL. But I, like tens of thousands of other pilots, will adapt because that's what the job would require.
If they really enforce something like that to the point where we effectively have to live in base, I suspect pilots will leave the industry in droves, especially at the regionals. Itinerant oil rig workers might be OK with following the work from one town to the next their whole life, but most pilots are white-collar professionals and really have no interest in such a lifestyle. I would not subject my family to that, I would probably ignore the rule until they fired me and then go do something else.
The industry's ability to attract new pilots will be hampered when they find out that in addition to making sub-fast-food wages, they will have to live in a high-cost area on their own, not at mom's house in peoria, and probably not anywhere they want to live.
What's next? Cameras in the cockpit to make sure we don't read USA Today in cruise flight?