Alaska Trip Mix
 

What's the trip mix like at Alaska? Mostly interested in SEA. Is it mostly/all 4 days and 3days? Any 2 day, locals or CDOs offered?

Thanks for the info.

SEA has everything. 1, 2, 3, 4 day trips. CDOs in the sense you fly a turn through the night, like SEA 11pm to ANC or something and back in the morning around 7-8am.

Next round of newhires will get the Bus in SFO or LAX.

Thanks for the response! That's good to hear. Is SEA 737 pretty senior?

Assuming one is awarded the Airbus as a new hire, is there a seat lock? What’s the estimate on the time to hold SEA 737?

There is a 2 year seat lock when you change equipment. I'm not certain if that applies to new hires or not, but I assume it does. I'm sure someone here does know, and will chime in. As far as holding SEA absent a seat lock, that number is going to be a moving target. I am at about 18 months now on the bus and was not anywhere near able to hold Seattle on the last bid. However this was the first bid where we could switch equipment, and it was a small bid. Once all of the Airbus PNW commuters (there are a bunch) get the chance to bid to where they want to be, I would imagine that number will come down.

Seat lock does not apply to new hires.

737 SEA or LAX was the jr seat when I was hired.

If you’re jr in SEA expect a lot of red eyes

As others have mentioned, the jr seat is now Airbus SFO


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Sea normally has around 30% red eye/WOCL. No WOCL override pay at AK. Line holder average days off is 14.xx, TAFB around 290.

And it should be 16-17 days off for the same pay like ALL OUR PEERS at the other airlines!

UNITY 2020!

NOOB's, keep your other apps updated. This place is stagnant AF. They hire SkyWest to do our flying and then they call it "growth".

LAX/SNA trips? Reserve times for new hires? Looks like the Bus is where the newbies are going? Typical lines and days off in LAX/SNA?

Thanks

HappyD

I’m also curious as to what LAX trips on the bus look like. Have recent new hires been able to hold LAX out of the gate? How often are reserves being utilized these days?

Mostly 0500 starts on day 1, 2350 release on day 4, making the majority of trips incommutable.

Lots of 4 leg days as most of our good flying has been given to the far superior engineering marvel of the world, the one and only 737.

You’ll begin to feel as though Portland, Tukwila, and San Jose are your new second homes.

Overall the schedules are horrible and getting worse. There is zero flexibility. Your sick time is what gives you days off you need. I’m not exaggerating, there is literally no flexibility.

I don’t know much about reserve but I’ve heard it is awful. 14 hours on call with your mandatory 10 hour rest period per 117. Basically, every hour your legally allowed to be contacted by scheduling you can and will be. So guess what, if you like beer you won’t be drinking any for 18 or 19 days out of the month (at least your waist line will be happy). You don’t have actual days off, you have hours off depending on when you release from last rap. I don’t know how often reserves are used but I hear they are frequently abused.

You will be on reserve for a very very very long time. There is little to no movement at this company as growth is only measured in increasing seats (not new aircraft) or regional flying. A shocking (for those not employed here) number of First officers, myself included, are applying or awaiting class dates at other airlines.

Good luck but take the warnings about coming to Alaska seriously.

Anyone who’d like to know more about reserve here can PM me. The above poster doesn’t paint it nearly in the correct light that it should be in. We have lots to fix here that’s for sure but he/she can’t say anything that isn’t dramatically negative about Alaska. FWIW I’ve been on reserve as an SFO Airbus FO for the last year and a half or so except for two months of open flying. My two months of LC have been the best job I’ve EVER had. Out of shear luck I’ve hardly been used and have had 20 plus days off for each, and the trips I got were commutable on both ends.

He asked about LAX, last time I checked San Fransisco is a different base than LAX. I say only negative things about Alaska because there is nothing positive to say.

Yeah and what about the other year of SCR? Was that the worst job you've ever had? You can't acknowledge in one sentence that you "got lucky" in your two months of LCR to only get used rarely and then also try to make it sound like someone else could expect the same thing.

It’s so interesting how literally EVERY reserve guy or girl I’ve talked to in either seat paint Alaska reserve as the worst in the industry. I guess all of those people are lying so that others don’t bid reserve and force them to take a dreadful line.

You should be ashamed of yourself trying to sell Alaska airlines as the best job you’ll ever have to a prospective new hire under the current conditions. You must have had some really strong koolaid 18 months ago to still be this stupid.
Congratulations on your “shear luck, most are having the total opposite experience.

I was on reserve in SEA and I flew a lot, almost hitting the monthly max during peak travel seasons. It seemed like LAX FOs on reserve didn’t fly as much as SEA. Expect to be abused and violated by crew scheduling. I still have friends at Alaska, most of them either waiting for a class at the big 3 or actively updating their apps. I sincerely hope your honeymoon period outlasts your disgust for Alaska. Their contract, especially work rules, are decades behind that of any legacy/major airline. I hear the regionals have much better work rules. Crew scheduling will lie and violate the contract on a whim to move their iron and the union, more specifically, the contract compliance team who is in bed with the company will not have your back. You’ll see.

I haven’t seen anyone quitting to go back to these so called regionals with better reserve.... Short call is what short call is, I guess everyone just thinks they should sit around and no nothing but still be paid. Your job as a reserve pilot is to be there waiting for the phone to ring... If it doesn’t that’s great if it does you go to work. Every month of short call was 50-60 hours or less for me and when I did a month of LC under the Virgin rules Iit was terrible. I’m not seeing any changes under the new Alaska SC to cry nearly as much about as you do. The longer RAP does suck but it hasn’t changed how much I’ve blocked on any given month. I JS a ton and everything we complain about at AS seems to be about the same as what I hear from junior guys at UA or AA. The hours off comment hasn’t ever held any weight for me either so what gives? Are you just one of the countless miserable coworkers that I’ve come across now that Alaska is the new boss? Do you think your life is going to be night and day different at whatever new airline you’re going to?

No they’re just dramatic whiners, most thought when they left the regionals that mainline flying would be some great new world and it’s not. It’s just a bigger plane and bigger paycheck. Anyone who argues otherwise is delusional.

Hahahahaha the old pot calling the kettle black. You my friend are delusional. Ask anyone who has left here if the grass is greener, don’t be surprised to not get the answer you were hoping for.

You definitely fit what Alaska’s looking for in a new hire.. someone who will stand on their soap box and yell to the angry villagers to shut up because it isn’t that bad. You are a total joke.

Ps, there are three confirmed people that left ALASKA for ENVOY. Keep up the good work making money for the shareholders off of your back for less than your peers.

It's not "having to work" that people are upset about, you dunce, it's having to commute in the night before and then being used until the middle of the night on the last day. It's only getting 12 days off (if the hours thing doesn't apply - congrats if that's the case for you, everyone else I've talked to has been hosed by that). It's not being able to self-assign without exact day match. It's the 14hr RAP that you can't swap. ETC ETC ETC. Ask yourself - are you willing to take the first upgrade your seniority can hold and live under these rules for 10 years? Or would you rather have rules that are decent enough that reserve goes senior? (DAL, JBU, others)

EVERY person that commutes to reserve at AS that I've talked to in real life HATES their life. That is ass-backwards compared to other majors. Get your head out of the sand or you're part of the problem.

And guess what - people literally have left for regionals. And also downgraded themselves because reserve sucks so much.

If this is true, which I doubt, they are total idiots.

Hey, YOU should apply to Envoy.

As for "Cruz5350", he's a longtime personal friend, and you are WAY off on who this guy is. While generally a positive guy in all respects, trust me, I've had to listen to him complain with the best of them MANY times about Alaska. I've had to talk him off the ledge a few times. So to say he's some sort of delusional Koolaid drinker yes man is to prove you know nothing of the man. He's under no illusions.

With that said, he's also a realist and in an overall sense enjoys his job. He's NOT a serial complainer like so many here on APC (like YOU), all the while commuting 1500 miles to his base.

Go ahead. Put your money where your mouth is. Follow the three "confirmed" (yea right) Alaska pilots who've quit and gone to Envoy, you fool, if it's so horrible.

And before you blast me as a Alaska Koolaid drinker, I'll save you the trouble and tell you I don't work there. I DO however have many friends - CA's and FO's - who work there - both legacy Alaska and Legacy Virgin America. While most feel improvements are definitely needed, they all actually are happy and like their jobs. Imagine that?! Crazy, I say. Right?!

Just to clarify you didn’t have 20 days off, you had approximately 12 off and didn’t get used for some.

I used to bid reserve when I wanted a break from flying.. LAX Boeing FO. I found that I was home more doing that compared with the hard lines of 12 days off and ANC/BWI all-nighters.

Guess what...

I know him personally (great guy actually). He commutes 1500 miles one way, and has since being hired. So, while every person you've supposedly talked to hates their life, at least one who you haven't talked to DOESN'T. Yes, he's had bad days and has been ****ed off with the best of them, but he DOESN'T hate his job, even with the 1500 mile commute.

Also, anybody who would jump ship from your airline for a Regional is someone who will either become a Regional Lifer or quit the vocation altogether. Those folks are the definition of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

I agree 100%. There is hardly any growth or age 65 retirements when you compare AS to AA/DAL/UAL/SWA/FDX/UPS and if you're able to leave then doing so is highly advised. I did and while I miss aspects about AS (mostly the flying and looking out at the nice scenery) I don't miss much else about it. It's no wonder that the bottom of the seniority list is a revolving door and people with even 4-5 years invested are leaving.

Totally.

I’ll miss the crews and also the scenery. The list literally ends there. I’m giving up more than 5 years seniority.

The bottom of the list is indeed a revolving door, the new attrition list makes that very clear.

This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about in the “spirit of AS” thread. This guy gets jumped because he offers a personal perspective that differs from the extreme views of one end of the spectrum. He acknowledges that there’s much to fix at AS but because he doesn’t say it’s the death spiral some feel it is, he gets called stupid, dunce, liar and more... For those that feel it’s the worst place to work, that’s fine, YOU, feel that way. It’s also fine that others don’t feel that way. It doesn’t mean the guy won’t be pulling for a better CBA come voting day. Why the need to attack him because he doesn’t hate his life or regurgitate the same extreme rhetoric as you?

Well said. Chalk it up to "kids these days". The only opinions allowed are those of the collective. Tolerance only applies if you hold their world view. I am beginning to feel as if the movie Idiocracy is prophetic.
All that being said, I have been at Alaska for a while. I've seen good times and bad. I expect that cycle to continue until I retire. I have completed 66% of a 30 year career. I can actually see the finish line, even though it's 10 long years away.
B Scale, Kasher, Merger, were all things that sucked, but it's simply part of the industry. Life is never perfect. I suggest we all put our big boy pants on and deal with it. I have no time for snowflakes.
Before the collective starts howling at the moon about what a jack wagon I am, let me say this - you (fellow AK pilots) have no better friend in the fox hole than me when it comes to improving our contract. I do everything that I can to improve this place.
The banter on this board cracks me up sometimes. Commuting to reserve sucks! - well there is a shocker! Who would have thunk it? The only man I ever knew that had a wonderful life commuting to reserve was a UAL B747-400 Captain. He retired (at age 60) after 34 years at UAL. He did a transcon commute and frequently had to go to sim for currency bounces. That was then, this is now. The industry has changed. My UAL friend (RIP) use to complain about how much the industry had changed during his career. His "life" was far better than anything I'll ever see. And the career of the men before him was far better (in his opinion) than anything he ever saw. And on and on it goes.
So, what do we do? Fight, scratch, claw, kick and punch for every scrap of meat we can get. "They" want to give as little meat as possible. We want as much meat as we can lay my hands on. I believe that we can and will get more. It will come sooner if we work together for a better contract for all. Unfortunately, the greedy individual just taking care of #1 is prevalent around here.
Rant over!

He’s getting jumped because he offers an “extreme view” from the other end of the spectrum. He’s flown less than 40 hours this month while a significant number of his captains have flown double that. Yet, he has the “real low down” on how great his 1.5 years sitting reserve have been; just give him a call and he’ll tell you personally what all these whiners got wrong...

He flew for Skywest and Alaska is great! Don’t listen to all these guys who go Alaska’s CBA dumped in their lap after years of having a more benevolent system. That’s why he got jumped.

Commuting to reserve regardless of where will make you miserable. Maybe except SWA where they get 15 off. What do the legacy carriers get? Delta varies between 12-14. United is 12 off in 30, and 13 off in 31, and I think AA is the same.

They closed my base, I moved to the new base because I was lucky enough to be in a position to be able to do so. Reserve at least in LA has been a breeze. I hardly fly (CA). The most I flew this year was 45 hrs in a month and that includes picking up two 1-day trips. Living in base and not flying much, picking up on a day off has been very lucrative. I pulled 100+ credit a couple months this year.

To each their own. I’m not happy AS closed the NY base, but I’m not gonna live miserably, hate AS, and be negative. Just trying to make the best of it and make some good $$$ and have fun. Many things in the contract need to be improved. We need scope. Sec 25 needs to be re-written. With time we will get there.

And let’s be honest about attrition. Most of the attrition list is full of FOs with less than 2-3 yrs and retirement ages in the 2050 decade. That means these guys are all in their 20s and early 30s. They would have left even if Alaska was a “good” deal because their lesser longevity is easy to walk away from, and they still have a 32-35+ yr career remaining. No one can blame them, it makes sense to do so at that young an age.

The difference is he’s speaking his perspective without calling anyone else stupid, dunce, telling them they’re lying etc.

I’m not discrediting anybody who says their life is worse off under AS. From where they stand, that may be the case. Why then does everyone try to discredit those who say their lives are better? Telling them they’re trying to mislead others? That they’re kool-aid drinking, spineless hacks?

I can’t speak to LAX Airbus rsv but I can speak MY perspective as a 4 + yr SEA Boeing F.O. Just like he CAN speak his as a 1.5 yr SFO Airbus rsv. I came from a better contract than we have now. I know what needs fixing. However, I can also say my life is way better now. It was way better when I had to commute to two different bases on rsv before I could hold SEA. I’ll bet there will be a number of ex-VX pilots that will experience a major boost in QOL when they’re able to stop commuting and drive to SEA/PDX and their lives will be better than before. Just because it doesn’t jive with your view of things doesn’t make it un-true. Also, we don’t have to be miserable to want improvements. I’m pretty sure that ALL the big 3 pilots are going to want improvements even though they already lead the pack on contracts.

Wouldn’t it be prudent to say the truth lies somewhere in the middle? Some guys are going to hate it, some will love it. Most will just learn the system, clock in, clock out, and remember it’s just a job, not an identity.

on the A320 the LAX suk badly....stay at the commuter....

"I DO however have many friends - CA's and FO's - who work there - both legacy Alaska and Legacy Virgin America. While most feel improvements are definitely needed, they all actually are happy and like their jobs. Imagine that?!"

...i guess you know exactly two pilots at AS??? LOL....

What exactly sucks about the 320 at LAX? I appreciate the sentiment, but could you elaborate some?

commutability...sux
trip credit...sux
logo on tail....sux
5 day trips over weekends...sux
3 leg/4 leg days ...sux
0530 starts and 2230 finish...sux
SNA flying...sux
did i say logo on tail??...oh yeah...that sux

What did Barbara Bush ever do to you? 😁

Lol, a lot more than two. Closer to 10, and most are from the VA side. Not miserable.

I debated responding to this, but it needs to be said. Your understanding of other airlines reserve rules is severely lacking. The number of days off (which you are a little bit off on for us anyway) doesn't even tell half of the story.

The difference is significant enough that when AS guys ask about DL reserve rules I honestly feel bad responding. I change how I bid if I'm on reserve, but my overall QOL isn't all that different from when I hold a line and in some ways is better... and that's as a commuter. In fact, many times on many fleets the plug can be forced to a line because so many senior pilots bid reserve at various points. This isn't just the international aircraft either, it also happens on the narrowbody fleets.

Reserve rules are really important to QOL, and when they are better it adds options for more senior pilots too. You are doing a disservice to your fellow pilots by trying to say "it's this bad everywhere" and implying improvements shouldn't be sought after.

You should not have to accept any worse work rules or pay than anyone else. I actually feel that, at least on the 737 fleet (I don't run into AS Airbus pilots as often), AS pilots are probably the hardest working (737) pilots in the industry and should be compensated accordingly. You definitely shouldn't try to justify the horrible work rules by attempting to say that they are comparable to other majors. I can't speak to the AA or UA work rules, but I know my reserve experience is night and day different from my compatriots at AS.

^ Well at least we know why things are so good at Delta.

I’ll second that if one pays attention and has (gasp) friends at other airlines, one tends to notice at the good airlines reserve goes senior.

A friend was hired at SWA and as soon as he was done with OE he had a line by the next bid period. That’s when I learned that AS reserve is really pretty bad. Mostly because we are staffed so poorly.


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Well said. There's a pervasive attitude at AS, even embraced by some former VXers, that what Alaska's got ain't that much different from the rest of the industry.

It's a dangerous mix of arrogance and ignorance that keeps these guys content with their status quo.

Thank you for bursting that bubble again.