ANC commuter
 

Question from an outsider here. Knowing ANC is the junior base for a new hire, how possible is commuting from Southeast US? I like AS and most of the AS domiciles are places I'd consider living at a few years in the future. For the time being though, I need to stay on the other side of the country. Is this doable? Not doable? Doable but painful?

New hires get LA or SEA now.


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Gotcha. If things were to change for the sake of a worst-case scenario, anybody done a long-distance commute to ANC?

Can't help with ANC specifically, but AS is NOT a commuter friendly airline in any way, shape, or form, whether it's the uncommutable pairings that start early and finish late, the inefficient pairings that result in 12-14 day off lines, the line bidding, the lack of straight cancellation pay requiring you to still be in base to be paid for a cancelled trip, the terrible reserve rules, the only 11hr long call, etc, etc, ETC. AS simply does NOT have the work rules that every other major airline has that benefit commuters.

I used to commute ATL-SEA. It wasn't bad as far as commutes go because it had 7-day per week AS service once daily, and about 6 months of the year it went to 2 flights/day. Also, if you live in a city where mainline Alaska flies you will get commuter status which bumps all other non-revs except management and 'must travel' personnel. The commute to ANC would be rough as it's, depending on your originating city, a 4 hour flight to Seattle then a 3+ hour flight to ANC (and in the summer months these flight are ALL packed to the gills... read oversold). You might look into FedEx and UPS jumpseat flight options from your home airport as well. It would offer more choices... possibly. No matter how you look at it, East Coast to ANC would be a brutal commute on the schedules that AS works. Doing it more than twice per month would, I'd imagine, be exhausting. When I left last month, ANC and PDX were still taking over a year to hold for new hires. That stuff changes on a dime everywhere except AS. As was said earlier, expect LAX or SEA.

How about don’t work here. That will solve your problem. Hold yourself to a higher standard than this airline.

That really is not useful to his question or post, however to add to the discussion I will say that as mentioned above our trips are not built to be commutable, and if they are I would plan on only one side being commutable.

Our lines are also not built with commuting in mind so you may have two trips that start in the afternoon, then two trips that start at 0600. Our trip trading is extremely inefficient and unreliable so I would not plan to be able to trade trips around to improve your schedule either.

Lots of transcon commuters to LAX. FedEx used to do MEM, IND and EWR to ANC. UPS comes up from SDF. Delta used to come up from MSP and SLC. SEA is where commuter and non-rev dreams go to die. SEA in general should just be avoided. Commuting through, Flying out of or living there.....Nasty place, unpleasant people, archaic transportation and an airport that is forecast to be a disaster for the next 20 years.....

No question that if you are going to commute you need to be LAX based. Everyone commutes and there is very little of the nasty, pilot hating Alaska Airlines culture that is strong in the other bases. SFO is to new to the system to make a judgement about its viability as a commuter base. Good luck with your search. One persons Vallhala is anothers Pandoras Box....No question that as a pilot group we have lost our way and are deep in uncharted waters.....It is going to take years(likely 7-10) for us to find our way back.....

Of the 144 FO vacancies for 2019, not a single one is for PDX/ANC. Then consider the current VX FOs who want ANC and PDX. While ANC/PDX may have been forced on newhires in the past, you won't have this problem anytime soon.