one leg, same time zone is sometimes easier than a long drive depending on base. Ie RNO-SFO… long drive vs quick flight. Still able to drive it but flying is easier if loads permit

2-3 hours is about the most I'd want to drive on a routine basis. Any longer and you get really limited on bidding flexibility, unless you want to drive in the night before, etc.

Any less than three hours driving time, I'd say just drive, hands down. I've done drives between one and six hours. One hour is a non-event (assuming no day trips). I've done air commutes of various lengths between transcon and 30 minutes air time.

More than three hours drive gets extremely impractical, exponentially. RNO-SFO for me would be an air commute, maybe possibly drive a couple times a year. After accounting for four hours of gas, just buying a ticket would start looking pretty good.

Does anyone have an idea of when a new hire, someone who started this week, could hold SEA?

It may be a while, you just had Dec 2024 hires finally get awarded SEA on the most recent set of position bids.

You'll have a better sense after the next position bid because the company publishes everyone's bids. You can go in and see who has SEA as their first choice but did not get in.

There were two vacancies left for NHs in SEA on the 06-26 bid. If you weren't offered one, then you will have to wait for another bid to come out. You may be able to get it then, or you may not, depending on the choices of those hired ahead of you. We can't guess what those bidders will put as their first choice, since they have never bid before.

Thanks for the info guys.

Stuck in the same holding pattern here.

curious how many of us are in the cjo pool. I really like Alaska, but interviewing us and then holding us off for almost a year after the interview absolutely sucks.

Yeah, seems like a waste to interview you just to put you on hold. But I know it is because they want to call you and get you in class the second they want to, so in their eyes, it is speeding the process up for them, but in reality, it is putting you in limbo. Obviously, anything could happen in this business, but at least having a CJO in hand shows that you have a job when hiring starts back up.

Alaska made a decision to not do this to it's CJO's several years ago, mostly because there was almost nobody left in the pool by the time they called, but I guess they decided to go back to it.