commuting question
 

Got my interview coming up and want to bounce a question off those that are familiar with things at AA.

I’m thinking of jumping to aa from my day trip focused airline, so I don’t have much experience trying to make a commute work. The idea is to be MIA A320 based, and potentially commute from Medellin, Colombia. Average day is 4-5 flights a day between mdw-Mia, from between 7am to early afternoon, two on aa metal. 3 hour flight to Mia.

what are the commuter rules like? Would it be possible for me to sit lcr and make this work or am I delusional? Possible as a lineholder?

thanks for the info!

that lack of late flights could bite you on LC. All you need is one legal flight on any airline to be covered by the commuter clause. Not a great idea to abuse while on probation. Very doable as a lineholder, but will probably have to commute on days off on at least one end fairly regularly initially.

Had an AA commuter on my jumpseat years ago (2015-2016). But he was senior lineholder. It's doable. On probation? Ugh. Can't on SC reserve. It looks like it's probably impossible on LC. Why? Trips are assigned by 4 PM. Last AA flight right not is 1:50 PM. First flight in the morning doesn't arrive until 11:30. That's DOA for a commuter on reserve.

I see, so if they called me at 3pm for a 7am show I’d be in a pickle. How does the commuter clause handle 2 legs? Looks like I could get two legs through bogota even late in the evening, although showing up in Mia at 2 am for a 7am show doesn’t sound like a fun way to start a trip.

How often should I expect a call when sitting lcr? How many days off on a lcr line? Is a 14 hour callout typical, or is it usually more?

I think I would be a lineholder fo relatively quickly, but if wanted to upgrade in Mia, I’d need to figure out whether lcr is reasonable.

So trips are required to be assigned prior to 4pm where the base is? (3pm mdw time). Is that typically when they assign it, or is that just the last chance to assign something? When would a typical assignment be given, and what is the typical callout on it?

LC get assigned first, LC MIA you’ll get used A LOT :D

Just to correct a common misconception- you don’t need any flights, let alone “one legal flight”. Where you start your commute from and your method of commuting has zero limit with the commuter policy. Read between the lines.

That said, I’d tread lightly on probation. Being able to reserve the jumpseat from MDE to MIA is nice. It wouldn’t be the easiest not the worst commute in the scheme of things.

well yeah… but i dont think a surface commute works if you list Colombia as a home address….

There’s zero requirement to commute from your home address before a trip, surface or not. You could commute from a mil job, a vacation, an RV off the grid, whatever. There’s zero requirement to tell Crew Scheduling the circumstances surrounding your commuter miss- think of it as akin to a sick call, you’re telling them, not asking, and it’s none of their business “why” anyway. If a CP hassles you (they almost never will, if you don’t abuse it) get your union rep on the return phone call.

The misunderstanding of our commuter policy and the inability for our pilots to read between the lines is common.

again sure. But as a probationary pilot the union rep is not necessarily there to protect from an overzealous Chief

That’s exactly why I said “tread lightly on probation”.

How often can I expect to have a 3pm assignment for a 14 hour next morning callout? Is that typical or an outlier?

Do reserves get used a lot? How many days can I expect to be assigned on a typical reserve month?

Long call reserves almost always get their trips assigned the day before. Occasionally you'll get the AM call for a late departure 12 hrs later. You're looking for the Goldilocks assignment - a PM evening after trips are assigned (by 4 PM) for an afternoon trip that just popped up. That's a unicorn. The next assignment that would work for you would be a regular assignment (3-4 PM) that leaves in the next afternoon. Every AM trip you wouldn't be able to get back to cover. It's unworkable. It's not an "overzealous Chief Pilot" that will fire you...it's almost any Chief Pilot that would fire you if you sit reserve and can't cover the majority of the trips you're assigned.

For planning purposes and in order to make an informed decision, you should assume you gonna be used every single day. There is not typical per se either, in my opinion.

I can tell you this, if you have to choose between the big 3, AA is the way to go if you gonna commute from Colombia. Just understand that the first year is what it is. Plus you should hold a line 3-4 months after OE.

The intent of the commuter policy is to allow a pilot that has made every reasonable effort to sign in on time an opportunity to call off the trip without disciplinary action. It is also stated in the policy the commuter policy is to be used infrequently.

please do not abuse our commuter policy. It is one of the few things here better than any other airline. Don’t **** it up.

if you are short call commuting by air is not acceptable.

If you are long call and there is a window of time that you can’t comply with the 12 hour call out you need to be somewhere else during that time.

Narrowbody Miami, you are on call 18 days, max they could use you is 16, averaging it all out you’ll probably get used 14 days or so (more during summer, maybe a bit less winter). It’s fairly uncommon to get a trip assigned prior to noon the day prior. Most of the assignments are being made between noon and 1500. On the narrowbody side, many assignments will be made between 1500 and the evening, as people call in sick, they break up trips from other bases, etc. Getting called at 1800, 1900 for a 1000, 1100 am trip would not be uncommon. Once you are a lineholder with just a bit of seniority (maybe a little over a year) you should be able to consistently get trips in MIA that are commutable, providing you prioritize that over everything else. It might be a few years before you can get fully commutable trips and start being picky about a bunch of other stuff. Most of your reserve time as a MIA FO will be while you are on probation, so becoming an amateur lawyer to your chief with the commuter policy the way some people have suggested is not going to work for you. From what you have described, it seems like for about half the day (most of which is during the prime assignment window) you wouldn’t be able to make it. If you really want to live in Colombia, just get a crashpad in MIA until you can hold a line (not too long, suck it up), and then commute from there.