I appreciate all the feedback and dialogue -- especially that which cleared up any misinformation.

On background, I have indoc coming up soon and live in the DFW area. Obviously, will hope to grab a S80 spot if there are any to be had.... so I am just trying to analyze what commute-to-reserve may look like for other choices.

 

Good luck on getting the 80, it will buy you more time at home until they go away.

Commuting anywhere from DFW pretty much sucks. Lots of commuters, dead headers, people going to and from training, dispatchers and FAA looking for a jumpseat. There are even a fair number of rampers and mechanics that commute to DFW.

The last eight months I did DFW-LGA, I'm now doing DFW-MIA, and I've done DFW-DCA in the past. Of those, DFW-LGA was by far the. easiest commute. All Airbus, so two jumpseats on every flight. You cant get to LGA before 11:50 though. MIA has been the hardest, the jumps fill up fast, several days out, and there are several 73's, with only one JS. Very rare to get a seat in the back between DFW-MIA.

I hear DFW-PHL isn't bad, LAX is doable, but flights are full, with lots of commuters also. I do know several LAX people, who sit long call at home in DFW. I only know one CLT commuter, he says thats a PITA.

Welcome to the flying circus!

 

I commuted DFW-LAX and DFW-CLT within the last year and never once had an issue getting on the flight I wanted. I rode the jumpseat a lot but I prefer a jumpseat on a 321 to seat 35B anyway. I have friends that commute DFW-MIA and it seems a little but harder but they have never had much difficulty getting on either. Being able to book the jumpseat 8 days out makes DFW to anywhere very possible unless you aren't wanting to sit in the jumpseat.

 

What about reserve? You can’t book anything in advance because you have no idea what you are doing?

 

When you start off initially you will be on short call and have to commute into base prior to your block of reserve starting so you do know when and can book 8 days in advance. Depending on what base you are going to this could be anywhere from a couple of months to over a year on short call status.

Once you are able to hold long call status this changes and you don't always know for sure when your trip will be. However, you will still likely get a trip on your first day of every reserve period and can book a jumpseat in advance and commute in on that morning. The policy is that you can book 1 jumpseat between any city pair every day as well so you could book one every day you are on reserve and cancel as they are not needed.

On last thing you can use is the commuter policy that protects you in the case that flights cancel and you can't make it in. You are only required to have a legitimate plan to make it to base. This means have a jumpseat booked, or even list for a flight with plenty of open seats to non-rev in. If things change and you can't make it or are late, you can call off using the commuter miss excuse if necessary. I wouldn't want to be using this on a regular basis but on the off chance you don't make it in time it can and is used by commuters on a regular basis.

Lots of options.

 

"The policy is that you can book 1 jumpseat between any city pair every day as well so you could book one every day you are on reserve and cancel as they are not needed."

Do not make a jumpseat reservation until you have plans to take the flight. If you reserve a jumpseat “just in case,” you will have needlessly blocked your fellow pilots from reserving that jumpseat.

 

^^^^^this!!! A million times this!!!

 

Good god our contract sucks...

 

Just a reminder: you are not required to be superman. Something like PBI or EWR, you get there when you get there.

 

And in the case of EWR, $100 poorer apparently. Intra-base transportation should be completely free to us.