1Taco

it looks like there are still a good number of them available. I was looking at it the other day and figured the prices were so low because of covid. So, I’m happy to hear that those prices are always so low.

Funk

YMMV, but a couple of things to consider in favor of a crashpad over AirBnB or hotels, pre or post covid are:
1) Knowing in advance your transportation options and where you'll sleep if you return to base too late to commute home, or when your commute in the night prior doesn't go exactly as planned.
2) Not killing time trying to find the right deal after making a commute or after finishing a trip.

Eliminating those unknowns, plus being able pattern bid for longer work periods and fewer monthly commutes meant a QOL improvement for me. I frequently was able to get one day Caribbean turns on the 73 right before or after awarded trips, which helped max my credit per day and meant fewer days worked and fewer total commutes per month. I also occasionally swapped into longer back to back trips, with my 30 hours in base to do laundry at my crashpad. Plus, I'm not much of a lounge warrior (hobo might be more accurate), so my $325/month on crashpad was easy insurance against a lot of uncertainties that I just don't want to deal with. Again, YMMV.

DenVa

FYI, LGA and JFK have free airport perimeter buses. I used Airbnb at LGA. The perimeter bus stops a few blocks away from a lot of them.

DWC CAP10 USAF

This!

My $325 is money well spent in my eyes for the same reason Funk posted.

RAH RAH REE

Yeah, unless you have half lga trips and half ewr trips with a few jfk trips thrown in. Nothing like getting in an Uber at 4am for your 5am EWR report from Kew Gardens.

Funk

Some strategic bidding can help there, and sometimes it can't. Obviously it varies by fleet and seniority. The crewrunner (FA van) used to be an option for going from Kew Gardens over to EWR. My EWR strategy was that if I couldn't avoid it, or because I picked up an EWR GS, to commute direct to EWR and overnight at a hotel with a shuttle, or do LIRR and NJ Transit over the night prior, and do the hotel. The cost of a hotel room often being less than an Uber ride, with the added benefit of sleeping in 2-3 hours more and still be at the gate on time.

There are some NY, NJ, and PA pilots that will bid EWR, but also some of them that bid themselves to JFK because they didn't like the sign in time at EWR. My experience on the 73 was that EWR was very often double uncommutable, but I also picked up a lot of GS trips there as well.

iflysky

That’s why we have swaps and drops. With the amount of narrow body open time we have currently with probably much, much more to come this summer, there should be no problem in swapping/trading for trips that originate in JFK or LGA. The catch of course is, you gotta be a line holder.

Bert Sampson

Don’t bother with LGA, use ride share of your choice and get it reimbursed.

DenVa

forgot about that change.

DWC CAP10 USAF

Get Uber/Lyft reimbursed? Did I miss a pilot bulletin?