Different Base pros and cons
 

Hello all. I am a new hire here at Alaska. So far has been incredible experience and SUPER ecstatic to be here. Only positive energy! I am curious about the different base choices. As I understand it, as a new hire I can expect, LAX, SEA or SFO. I am wondering of pros and cons on each. Mostly interested in new guys that have had to deal with reserve and have recent experience with what I will be encountering. Thanks for the help! Looking to know about ease of finding crashpad, coummutability, and trip destinations.

Great question! I’m starting training Jan 7 and wonder also. Hope to get ANC at some point.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Where do y’all live? Commuting to AS reserve can get old but if you’ve been hired already sounds like you’re in the front of the 144 newhire wave (or a small splash). SEA is 737 only, SFO is 320 only, and LAX is both fleets.

ANC



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Knoxville. I have been commuting for a regional so nothing AS can throw at me can be worse than that! :) Gonna be a brutal commute cross country but so worth it! Plans to move to PDX or SEA at some point but not until after first year. Thanks for the legit response!

Well, Alaska’s reserve rules and the way your “hours off” are scheduled is worse than most places regionals included, but once you are off reserve you can look forward to 12 or maybe 13 days off a month for a while

There is a two-year equipment freeze in the CBA. 737 bases are ANC/PDX/SEA/LAX, Airbus in LAX/SFO. I don't know how AS arranges new hire classes, but I would prioritize airplane first because of the seat lock.

LAX is more commutable than SFO. Whenever SFO drops to two runways, you're hosed. SFO is one of the most GDP prone airports. I know some guys who live in SEA and commute to LAX.

SD told us in the Q A session of the interview that new hires are not seat locked, as they have no choice of equipment.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

SD told me lots of stuff. Apparently I’d be able to bid the bus in October...

It’s December...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And I was told not to worry about the NYC base......

Yeah, don't worry about it because there is no base is what they meant.

Based on the number of opening after the last position bid I’m guessing you’d be off reserve sooner in SEA than LAX or SFO. SEA ended up with something like 85 FO positions to fill so those hired early in the year in SEA will have lots of new hires coming into the base behind them. With all of the training going on they will be tight on pilots in the Spring so expect to fly a lot at all bases while on reserve.

Great responses with useful data! Thanks! Any idea how many LAX FOs compared to the 85 in SEA? Sounds like SFO is def out and seat lock sounds fine for me as long as it is 737! :)

True, but keep in mind the next bid, whenever that occurs will allow people to bid different aircraft, there are a number of airbus folks who live in Seattle that may choose to bid the 737, so it’s possible progression off reserve for new hires could be a bit slower than it would appear

10 openings in LAX base on last bid. As mentioned next bid is unknown since people will be free to move between aircraft. Won't be another bid until after the Summer.

Something else to consider is that LAX is a co-terminal base with SNA. As a reserve pilot you're only responsible to get yourself to LAX, however once you start bidding Open Flying lines then you may have a line with both LAX and SNA trips. You can avoid bidding for them obviously, and sometimes the SNA lines have been going really junior for FO's.

Here are the vacancies for the 144 newhire FOs which consists of 96 B737 and 48 A320:


A320 LAX - 25
737 LAX - 10
A320 SFO - 23
737 SEA - 86

Any pilot, including line holders, may request transportation in accordance with the co-terminal language. Make sure you set that up with CS ahead of time (at least 3 hours before check-in.)

Long time Alaska pilot here. Just fly out of where you live. Commuting sucks. One other thought. Seattle will always have the most scheduling flexibility/variety.

Shame we couldn’t have taken advantage of the affordable housing prices when you did.

Two different airlines....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

“Fly out of where you live?” So unless you live in base, you should resign and get a different flying job close to home? Or did you mean uproot your life and move to the biggest base of the airline that bought your commuter friendly airline? Either way it’s a real feckless “let them eat cake comment.” Commuter friendly schedules are a huge concern of a rapidly growing proportion of pilots on our list, especially as new guys find themselves priced out of our west coast bases.

What about 320 vs 737 flying from LAX.
Monthly credit?
Reserve time?
Schedules?

Thanks

Every terrible thing in our contract can be boiled down to the fact that so many L-AS people drive to work. Awful reserve rules? Not that bad if you live in base. Cancellation pay that requires you to still come to base? Not that bad if you live in base. Awful commuter clause? Non issue if you live there. Uncommutable pairings and a 5:51 block hour limit that ruins productivity? Not that bad if you live in base. Crappy line bidding with very little flexibility? Doable if you live in base.

This is just a short list of things that clearly haven't been a priority in at least the last decade for the Seattle/Portland/Anchorage crowd. Why not, is anyone's guess as far as I'm concerned because improvements to all of those things would benefit everyone, not just commuters.

You guys are wound up way too tight if you can take the most repeated and true statement in the airline industry, "live in base," offered to a potential new hire and twist it into something elitist and bad.

Secret Sauce

So other than Anchorage, which I know nothing about our bases consist of the most expensive cities to live in, pretty much on earth.

The thing is, it wasn’t that way until relatively recently. However now the housing market is beyond overheated in Seattle and everyone is telling me to simply “move in base.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ANC is right up there on the cost of living index....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

According to Ben, he can offer total compensation that sits 15-25% below his competition as long as everyone drives to work. It has been working well for him since at least 1995. I guess we will see how it goes from here.

I commute and Alaska isn't the greatest for commuters but we can improve things in the next CBA. I also think that you can live within 1.5 hours of PDX and SEA for a reasonable price. SFO/LAX are tougher unfortunately...

One more piece to the drive. 100 mi is about the accepted limit for driving and Short Call Reserve. At least it was and it came out of some BS 8-10 yrs back. 2hr short call is to report time which is an hour before departure. With the exception of comfort level on probation there is no requirement to consider local traffic. 100 miles on an empty highway with 2 hrs is a no brainer. Traffic, that is Brad and Bens problem not yours.

This airline is decidedly anti-commuter. No twist needed. Live in base? No thanks--I prefer to love where I live as opposed to being a slave to the company. Productive commutable trips can be achieved in our next CBA.

Considering I called in sick once and got an email from a CP, I wouldn’t want to test the being late theory. Traffic or no traffic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Did you read the email.... maybe it was just wishing you a speedy recovery to your ailment?? :p

Don’t sweat those emails. I’ve got quite a collection of them myself most of which came in my first year here. I’m sure it read something like “we see you called out, let us know if we can do anything for you and we hope you’re feeling better”..... feel good harassment. I’ve even had the privilege of a handful of personal phone calls from the CPO. They seem to come in waves depending on the current CP. CZ was constantly harassing me over sick calls. It tapered off with GT in there and now I hear DM is back at it full steam. Sick is sick and they can’t do sh** about it. Same thing with traffic. The contract gives us the time so take it. I live about 45 mins away from SeaTac. To eliminate any stress, I give myself 1 hour to be at the airplane, no more no less. Traffic, employee bus availability etc. are all out of my control. 95% of the time no problems but 5% I’m late and them’s the brakes. They want us all to live 10 mins from the airport in any base.....pay up.

Was not a form letter. It was written just for me and demanded an explanation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Was it from DM? I’ve heard he’s been personalizing them. My buddy read one to me he just got from DM and he added a bunch of personal nonsense. Your only response, should you choose to give one, is “I was sick and not 100% safe to fly”. Trust me, it’s just hot air. They’re being pressured to crack down on sick calls. Notice they added a sick call percentage chart to the CP monthly emails. I’ve had them demand I go get a Dr.’s note, yes... it’s in the contract, never gave them a note and they never did a thing about it. They walk a fine line harassing us about sick calls. Just tell them that when you were talking to an FAA official they told you it’s best to stay home when not 100% ;)

I get those e-mails all the time for years, I wouldn’t worry about it.

I do agree that there is lots of room for improvement in our contract but there are some myths out there that I don’t think are as huge a deal as some on here make it out to be once you understand how it works. You can cherry pick bad provisions or good provisions from every airline contract and make yourself feel better or worse about your situation at-will, but if you are going to evaluate if you should come here or not you need to take the entirety of the contract into account.

As far as days off go, your day off starts at a specific time which is 4 hours after the end of your contactability perIod on your last day. Know that you can and will be used until that time. Alaska has contactability periods starting as early as 2am and as late as 6pm. Those on here proposing calendar days off probably come from airlines operating in one time zone or with operations that shut down after 11pm. If you start your zone at 6pm is it realistic to expect to be off at midnight? What about the day you come back? Should you start your zone at midnight, or do you expect to be able to be off most of your first day at work? So you start at 1700 on day 1 Andrew end at midnight on day 5 which effectively means that if you aren’t used by day 4 you can just go home. That sounds like about 3 full days of reserve. Sure, we could negotiate that, but that would come with a high negotiating cost



You can’t always do it but most pilots proffer to fly trips on the last day that are advantageous to them. If you are on the 1200-0200 zone but you end up with a trip that ends at 1800 on the last day you don’t have to stick around.

When I commuted to reserve I bid as late a zone as possible, usually 1700-0700 or 1800-0800. That gave me all day on day 1 to get to base. I would then look for trips to proffer for that either got me in on the last day as early as possible, or if that wasn’t possible, a trip that got me back with 2 or 3 days of availability. So if I was available for 5 I would only profer for 3 and 2 day trips. The next day, being good for 4, I would profer for 4 or 2 or 1 day trips. The Key is that you don’t want to be good for 1 going into your last day since that means you will probably end up flying until the end of your zone, or by the time you figured out that you weren’t it would be too late to do anything anyway. There are lots of 2 and 3 day pairings that fit the late zones on day 1 but get into SEA at a reasonable hour on day 2 or 3.


Having been based at and commuted to every base except SFO as a junior FO...

SEA - Pros: widest variety/availability of flying. The most variety of zones that allow you to choose the best zone for you. Most reserve lines, which increases the chances that there will be a reserve line with the days off that you need to minimize trading. Good availability of crash pads. Train comes right to the airport, greatly increasing the prospects for car-less crash-padding.

Cons: Reserves cover everything, sim, MX test flights, etc. If things are falling apart at AS they are falling apart in SEA so if you are on reserve you are flying 20-30 hours/month more than your counter-parts at the other-bases (no idea about SFO)

PDX: Pros: It’s PDX, better airport (parking situation, food, etc.) than any of the other bases. PDX has historically had the lowest sick call rate of all the bases which equals less flying for reserves. Even on bad we days, things are usually running pretty smooth at PDX. PDX pilots are not qualified to fly SE Alaska so that eliminates a lot of flights you are able to cover when transiting SEA. Max-train goes right to the airport which expands crash pad possibilities.

Cons: Not many open trips so very often your line is your line. The lack of open trips on reserve also mean that it is more difficult to game the system in a way that gets you off early on your last day. More than half of PDX pairings report before 0800 and a good number start before 0600 so if you are PDX based expect to be flying AM. Also, almost all reserve zones are early AM zones.

LAX: Pros: Depending on where you are commuting to, your commuting options are usually vast. Everybody flies to LAX from everywhere. Red eyes East are also very commuter friendly.

Cons: SNA. When you are junior/reserve you will end up in SNA at the end of a trip right after the last departures. Many pairings end with Mexico turns so that you are clearing customs on your own time. It’s not as bad as when all our international went through Bradley, but it is still something to consider. Same small base problems (lack of trips, etc.) I mentioned under PDX. The big one for me with LAX was crash pad, I don’t/won’t hot bunk so it was a challenge to find my own room in a descent part of town. I think a car is mandatory if you are LAX based.

ANC: Pros: Hawaii flying is junior. Good amount of crash pads due to the number of commuters from other airlines. Ahhh, it’s ANC, that is either a positive to you or a negative. Since new hires aren’t being forced any longer I will presume it’s a positive since you are considering bidding it. Now that I think of it, since you presumably bid ANC you might prefer OME or OTZ...those day trips are senior.

Cons: Small base. ANC problems, 2 feet of snow and ice on your commuter car when you get in after being gone for 2 weeks. You go to FAI a lot. You would think that 25 flights a day in the summer between ANC-SEA would make for an easy commute...it doesn’t.

Great post altocumulus, thx!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Check out Chehalis/Centralia WA. Easy driving commutes to both PDX and SEA.

For PDX, Vancouver and Longview.