Already addressed.....

Yes and they were not specifically targeting crew members.....

I've also been commuting from the midwest to DTW on reserve on the 320. You've got the right idea to be conservative at first. However, you will quickly figure out when you need to be in base, and when you can relatively safely go home. I lived a solid 10 hour drive from DTW, but I did have 4 airports that I could fly out of in a pinch. I never had to drive, despite some crazy snow days, cancelled flights, etc.

In the end it comes down to your comfort level. Can you relax and enjoy your time at home, knowing that you may be called out at any time? If you're 300 miles away, and can drive it in the worst case scenario, then I would (after you're comfortable with the system) make use of your LC days at home. Otherwise you're gone for 18 days for only 70 hours of pay, which really sucks.

In nearly 3 years of commuting to reserve I have only been given the minimum of 12 hours to report once. When you are on long call, the odds of a min callout aren't very good - though always possible. Short call, on the other hand, can definitely yield some quick callouts, so you always want to be readily available for your SC periods.

On average I would say I spent about 15 days a month away from home, including SC days when I wasn't used. This is much better than a reserve system where you just have to be 2 hours from the airport on all your reserve days.

To echo everyone else. Welcome aboard! Like Johnso29 said, PM me if you have any ?'s about sharpshooting reserve commuting. It can be done!

3 engine failures? I saw it on FNC but it was on mute. Says we had one in Ireland and two yesterday in JFK and ATL?

Yep, someone posted the details a few pages ago.

Basics:
JFK-SVO (Moscow, engine failure after T/O, dumped fuel, returned to JFK). ATL-LAX, engine problem after T/O, returned to ATL. The Ireland was a PHL-Paris flight, guess it lost it over the Atlantic. Diverted to Shannon.

Bad day or two on the ER, for sure. Maybe that will work toward the Maddog folks feeling sorry for us. :)

Also Mike,

I did the crashpad thing for a few months in DTW. Once we switched over the DL contract with a max of 6 SC's per month, I bailed on the crashpad and started using hotels in DTW. DTW is a great place for commuters because the hotels are so cheap. Plenty of options at $37/night out the door. If you do the math, you can spend 4-5 hotel nights and be breakeven with a crashpad. In the last year, I think my worst month hotel-wise was 4, maybe 5, nights. Most months were 2-3 hotels.

Some guys like the crashpad deal because they can budget for a fixed amount every month. If we're short, and you are flying alot, then you won't need to be there every night of the month. The rare month where you may need 6-7 nights in DTW would be offset by the summer months when you will fly almost everyday. Oh, plus you won't need a car!

Let me know if you need a list of the cheaper hotels.

I'm pretty sure half of Mumbai knew where foreign air crews stayed long before that attack, so there's no reason for terrorists to waste their time trying to search this massive thread looking for where our hotels are. They can save themselves a lot of time and effort and just ask a local or follow the van from the airport.

For getting his coach fired, I would like to nominate Brett Favre as APC's most despised NFL player for the year.


Go Bears!


Ok. Back to your regularly scheduled programing......

He had to go! Should have been sooner.

I'm not a Vikings fan, but I think Childress should have gone sooner. He just isn't getting it done IMO.