Do any current Year 1 FO's care to share their experiences at Breeze on the 220? I'm specifically interested in commutability and how many days a month you're away from home, including commute time. I have general knowledge of the MSY tempo since I know a CA there, but am curious as to the ballpark time commitment to commute until I would be able to move to base. Also, how long for you to hold a line? I'm familiar with 121 operations and lifestyle so am only looking for Breeze specifics please. I interviewed today and my timeline progressed consistent with the most recent discussions (about 5 weeks from app submission to interview).

 

Fellow FO.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. PVD/BDL are junior. You can occasionally sneak into another base when one is announced, but those are becoming few and far between. Growth has slowed from prior projections this year. Summer months are great, winter is insanely slow.

Plan on 1-2 years on reserve. Commutability in the traditional sense is almost zero. All trips begin/end before 7am/after 10pm. But don’t worry, the best western is $90/night.

Reserve is at least 18 days a month. Almost all short call. Long call is rare.

I don’t mean to kill the vibe, but it’s hard being new at Breeze unless you live in base. Management has been very clear here. They do not care about industry commuting norms - live in base or suffer by your own choice. Good luck!

 

100% accurate. The very top of the company has repeatedly said that they think pilot should live in base and the policies reflect that.

That being said Breeze is a good place to work if you live in base, but commuting is rough. The airline has low priority on other carriers for commuting, and the commuter policy is vague, especially if you need two legs to get to base. If you use it more than a handful of times, it can lead to disciplinary action pretty quick. Crash pads are hard (impossible) to find in most bases, so you'll probably be stuck paying for hotels, like Leftapproved said. Breeze offers positive space commuting on its own metal, but unless you live somewhere they fly and don’t mind getting in a day or two early, you’ll need to commute on another airline.

 

Considering it was mentioned on one of these threads that DN was saying “Give Breeze a chance” and that they are concerned that the attrition rate will increase once the majors start spooling up their hiring…surely they must know that making commuting more viable is a quick way to improve retention?

 

We’ve been saying this for years. They don’t care. They plan very conservatively for attrition. Until the surplus of pilots clears out, expect more of the same. Summer is manageable since 2 day trips to the west coast are more common. They almost all disappear during the winter and turn to day trips.

 

They have thousands of pilots to choose from, so there’s little incentive to drastically improve commuter quality of life anytime soon. And to be fair, there’s only so much they can do. The business model is built around serving markets that other airlines don’t, which means bases are often in cities with limited flights and no real market for crash pads.

It’s an airline filling a niche, and it can be a great fit for pilots who live nearby. But if someone is expecting Breeze to turn into JetBlue or Southwest with a strong union contract, you’ll be disappointed. What I’ve seen is that pilots coming from other airlines expecting significant schedule flexibility or the ability to trade into a better schedule (as I did) whether through Crew Scheduling or other pilots are often let down. However, if you go in expecting day trips and sitting reserve in a hotel for a while, you’ll be much less frustrated. And if you happen to get a line sooner than expected, it’ll be a pleasant surprise.

 

I wouldn’t say they don’t care, at least they’re coming up with the home based reserve, that’s something. The problem is they can’t do too much unless they throw tons of money at it which we don’t have. Also according to management 3/4th of pilots are happy with their base situation. They have a business model which requires uncommutable trips. Pilots also take the job because they need a job and end up complaining about it even though they know what they signed up for, a mostly day trip new airline based in small cities. But as of now company has thousands of applications, unless there’s attrition or allegiant or frontier get a contract anytime soon, there’s no way we see improvement

 

I don’t disagree with you on this. But I also think that “you knew what you signed up for” isn’t a good enough excuse to not have industry standard rules.

 

welcome to how every Allegiant pilot has felt for years. Best of luck to all Yall

 

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