In the tight manning situation we find ourselves now, I wouldn't plan on a lot of downtime as a junior reserve.

That said, I'd think 737 would be the best of those choices.

 

Guys and gals coming on board in the future, first off welcome aboard. Great company and a good time to join.

Narrow bodies in general will give you the quickest upward movement. Of the narrow bodies, the Mad-dog or Mad-puppy (717) will give the quickest upward movement for the most part. In NYC, upward movement is super fast on all narrow bodies. I came from a regional and was used to doing 2 leg commutes for years. It wasn't that bad at the regional with some proper planning. I was NYC based on 717 initially and let me say, my 2 leg commute was easy barring weather in the northeast. At Delta you can reserve jumpseat 5 -1/2 days in advance going to work and 3-1/2 going home. If you commute thru ATL to NYC, there are tons of flights. MSP to NYC is easy for most part. Not sure about DTW to NYC. Point being, NYC is not bad other than commuting in day b4 and going home mostly the day after. That part sux. Plenty of crashpads to choose from.

You should be able to hold ATL on 88 or 717 or 73N within a few months. I held ATL 717 before I started sim training but didn't convert to ATL until this month. I was awarded ATL in November during training. 2 months in NYC. 2 months during winter weather and I had no problems 2 legging it. Maybe lucky!

Food for thought. If you don't want to do a lot of training jumping from fleet to fleet in your career here, if you get A320, it's a perfect 1st step to A330, which could be a step to A350 one day. Easy transitions.

Don't worry if your only option is NYC initially, it's not that bad if you take the time to plan your commute ahead of time. (Barring the weather) Plus, plenty of open time to be had. If u want to sit reserve any base and not fly much, well, I'd look for 73N or Airbus right now. But that's always subject to change. Again, welcome aboard to all newcomers.

 

If I understand it correctly, on log call reserve you are basically on call 24hrs a day? So they could call you at 230am for a 230pm flight? Do these situations happen often? Can you do long call from out of base or is that too risky? Getting called at 230am will leave a lot less options to commute in on time.

 

Technically, yes that could happen, but very unlikely. They usually have everything covered (notified) by the day prior. They have what they call PCS runs at defined times each day. I believe 7am eastern is 1st, then noon and so forth. Shortly after they do these runs, they assign(notify) crewmembers. You'll know your schedule for the next day usually by noon or so the day prior. The one thing that can get ya is if they assign you short call. They still have to give 12 hr notice but if they notify you at 8 pm that you'll be on short call at 8am and your not in base already, you may not have a flight (s) to get you there.

On probation I would not chance sitting at home on reserve unless you live in or near base.

One thing you can do is a yellow slip. EX: You have 5 days of reserve starting tomorrow. You look in open time and see several 3, 4 or 5 day trips that start tomorrow. You can put in a request to pick up (yellow slip) a specific trip or a blanket request that could cover some or all of those open trips. If you see a 4 day for example that begins on the 1st day of your reserve and it reports late in the day, you could try yellow slipping it. If you get it, you are not required to be contactable prior to its report time. Good way to make reserve more commuter friendly.

 

Cool. Thanks.

 

Any thoughts on the pros and cons of commuting MSP-ATL vs MSP-NYC?

My take is that NYC, with its faster path up the relative seniority ladder, would probably be the better choice.

 

Don't over look DTW. It's a possibility too. One person in our class on the 717 was awarded DTW on the first AE he bid.

 

Any advice for the best crash pad websites to search for nyc, and a nice area to stay when commuting to all 3 airports?

Thank you

 

Good point. I was thinking along the lines that most of the new hire drops are NYC and ATL.

 

I would do a lot more research before making that decision, if I were you. As a commuter, I found that Atlanta had many more commutable trips than NYC. Also, look at the options for flights between the city pairs. I found I could get to ATL earlier and finish a trip later in the day and still have an opportunity to commute. What good is 50% seniority in NYC if you can't get commutable trips? You might be more likely to get that as a junior lineholder in ATL.