Seattle gets a lot less average rainfall than many cities not famous for rain (ATL gets over a foot more per year). SEA's reputation comes from how its distributed.

Of course you're asking just to get a rough baseline to try and determine that legitimate component of QOL. But right now, exceptions and BES relative seniority microclimates aside, all narrowbody QOL sucks and high leg counts per day are everywhere. They're also force multipilied by mandatory plane changes (despite the "full kitting" unicorns) every leg through any hub (and sometimes at outstations) with both long tiring sits and mad dashes across the concourses. Early reports, late releases, sandbag reroutes off your awarded trips, burning the candle at both ends due to the 2018 "optimizer" which will never go away until its negotiated away (anti-FUPM jujitsu when we focus too much on getting that TVM 8/3/3 instead of QOL).

Despite the legends and lores of tuesday through thursday day turns, reliable ER international and epic reserve beards, anything under 330/765 mostly sucks for QOL right now, every base, both seats. Legs per day is a tiny, tiny part of it. While somewhat relevant, I'd emphasise almost any other QOL metric over it when trying to decide what to pick.

California Tax Question
 

I know I’ve seen info about this somewhere on APC, and yes, I tried the search function... but I was a 717 captain in LA from October 2017- August 2019. I commuted from Seattle. Just today I received a request from the state of California to file a 2017 California income tax return. Is there an exemption for airline pilots that don’t live in the state to avoid CA tax filing requirements? I’m waiting on a call from the CPO on the subject, but APC seems to have a quicker response time

Your on the right track. From what I understand you deal with it through the CPO office. IIRC there is a form that the base secretary has you fill out. Just to be clear, if you are a legal resident of another state for tax purposes you are good, although CA can be pretty aggressive in initially going after some people.

Scoop

The CP’s office won’t do anything about the tax issue. They deal with setting up your state withholdings ect.. You should however get a letter from them with the home of record you list with Delta. CA is on a fishing expedition. Send them a letter stating your current address in WA. Attach some proof of ownership and include relative facts like kids in school ect.. and the letter from Delta. That might get them off your back. I am assuming you own no property and don’t have a rental in CA. It’s possible if they get real nasty you might need to produce non rev travel records ect.. If you flew mostly the LAX to SFO shuttles you might have a issue as the United guys found out. As long as 50% of your flying time was not in the state of CA they don’t have a leg to stand on. Federal law dictates how transportation workers pay state taxes. If they don’t back off after the first letter you might need to get a attorney involved. It took me five years to resolve a similar issue with CA and I had to get a attorney involved. What’s amazing is I sold my house in CA, moved and purchased a house in another state and transferred out of the LAX base to another state. I provide proof of all that and they still insisted I owed CA taxes. The number they wanted was well into six figures when I finally got a attorney involved.

i had the same letter a few months ago. LAX CPO wasn’t any help, unfortunately. In the letter CA sent, you choose which category you fall in to with regards to your responsibility to pay them taxes. I filled out the “I don’t owe you anything” category. I googled their tax document and used the verbatim legalese regarding airline workers in my response and included a copy of my tax return for that year. I received a letter back saying they were dropping it.

Blanket WS
 

I have never used a blanket WS and am thinking about one since I am only at 68 hours for November. Can I screen a blanket WS or am I stuck with whatever delicacy that crew schedules serves up?

Thanks Scoop

why not just log into iCrew about 30 minutes prior to each PCS run and see what’s there? If only at 68 hours, you have plenty of time?

I guess that is an option if its not a proffer but a hard award, but it sounds like a lot of work - there is a reason we are dealing with someone at 68 hours here. :D

Scoop

I use them all the time but the parameters I put in are pretty tight. 1 or 2 days, 4 legs or less, no more than 2 legs in any duty period, no sits more than 2 hours. There are dozens more parameters you can use if you desire.

Basically I build it so that any trip I get awarded is something I would have taken without a second thought. Also, trips with those parameters rarely show up except for the day prior so it’s more often then not a call with a profer for the trip anyways.

Open MiCrew and hit open time. Less than 30 seconds required.