Either you hate Seattle and should just move to MKE or you like living in Seattle and will be miserable about never spending more than a day or two at a time at home.

Most MKE schedules are a pre 7am show time on day one and a 9pm or later end time in day 4. What this means is you’ll be leaving home early afternoon at latest on day 0, getting a short nights sleep wasting money in either a crash pad, apartment, or hotel, working 4 days, then spending another short night and wasting money in another crash pad, apartment, or hotel, and then fighting a bunch of other commuters for seats home out of either MKE or two legging it through ORD, all for what? A slightly quicker upgrade and some bonus money upfront?

You might be able to get creative with swapping/adding to get more contiguous time off at home and minimize your commute but that’s hardly a guarantee.

What’s drawing you here over Compass, horizon, or SkyWest? I like working here but I would never commute from halfway across the country to start working here.

I appreciate your honesty and the information you shared. Both airlines in Seattle (Compass & Horizon) are wildly overstaffed (Compass never got back to me and Horizon did not interview me), and with skywest I’m getting LGA or DTW, and by the time I can get Seattle it’s time to upgrade again. From what you’re saying it sounds like I should just move, and maybe occasionally “commute home” to see family/friends. Would you agree?

I would say at least LGA/DTW would be a one leg commute for you with likely more commutable schedules. If you did want to come here and didn’t have a lot of roots in Seattle I’d move to live in base just so you don’t drive yourself insane.

The last 3 vacancies new hires went to ord and iad in small numbers in addition to mke and cae so it’s not impossible to get ord out of training or within a month or two. One leg commute. Down side is you won’t upgrade there fast so you would have to move to mke at some point.

But if your goal is to upgrade fast then you need 1000 hrs fast. And you want a line ASAP. So mke is the path I’d take. Little to no reserve as an FO, and you will sky rocket up the FO list and be able to bid high credit lines. Get you time fast and upgrade there. And I’d move if you can.

I commute, and I love my job.

I commute, and I hate every pilot that lives in base.

If you're willing to move then by all means move. Milwaukee can actually be a fun city if you move to the right area. Brady Street is full of restaurants and bars and there are nice apartments all around there. You could have a great few years living there and driving to work instead of killing yourself commuting from SEA.

I’m on reserve and live in base...it’d be hell if I commuted. That said living in base gives me a lot of flexibility to pick up open time. I credited 110 hours last month without really trying.

110 hrs and you’re reserve!?

There are no reserves here, only surprise lineholders :D.

If you’re aggressive with picking up it’s very easy to credit 110-120 a month on reserve. I think I maxed out at 156 one month.