MSP 88 (plug) on this last AE was a March, 2014 new-hire, FWIW. YMMV.

 

Is CVG still considered a Sr base? What are the demographics for the 73N and MD88 in CVG?

TIA,

FAJ

 

First off, welcome. Are you from the area originally and thus tied into Gig Harbor? It's nice, but also a bit of a pilot ghetto, and you'll have to cross a toll bridge to get to work. Lots of nice stuff out towards Bellevue and Issaquah if you're looking for a bigger place with no tolls to get to the airport, or in the city if you want to have a smaller home with lots of walkability to good pubs, restaurants, and entertainment.

 

There are a lot of great places to live up here. It really depends on what you like to do, and how far out you are willing to go. There are many, many great places from Gig Harbor to Oak Harbor and Bainbridge Island to Fall City. I know a Realtor(not sure how well she knows Gig Harbor) and a mortgage guy, if you need one, I can recommend.

(If you're senior to me, you reaaalllly won't like it!!!)

Denny

 

Thanks, looking forward to getting back west. No kids in the house, just dogs and cats. We do some road biking, a little golf (that's going downhill fast). Just wanted to live close enough to pull reserve if I had to.

I think you're on the Bus, so I won't bother you

 

CVG is going more junior however it is a dying base long term. There is a good chance it will not be around at some point in the not to distant future.

 

CVG is a unique animal. There are currently about 250 pilots here, with roughly 60 pilots in each seat (M88, 737, ca/fo) The captain’s seat and the top 2/3rds of the FO’s seats go very senior for the type aircraft, but the bottom 3rd of the M88 and a few of the 737 seats are pretty junior. In fact, the junior pilot awarded the m88 CVG appears to be a sept ’14 hire. They are generally replacing M88 FO’s as they leave, and guys do seem to be moving out for upgrades, bigger equipment, better seniority, etc. A handful of junior FO’s seem to make this an intermediate stop, on their way out to MSP, or biding time on a seat lock to get to the 73 in DTW.

They have stated that they don’t want to backfill up to 10 73 CA and FO spots going forward. However they continue to backfill on the 73 FO side only as necessary to keep the categories from getting too far out of balance. When 73 captains leave (which is rare,) they are generally not replaced, nor are the corresponding number of FO spots.

Nobody on the left seat has a strong desire to leave – they’re not here because they want to drive big metal, they’re here because they want to drive to work. We don’t have a lot of retirements coming up for CA’s. In fact I only know of one voluntary and one Mandatory retirement in the next year, with no more mandatories scheduled until 2017. That could be a good thing for the base, though – as they have publicly stated they don’t have the sim capacity to deal with the number of training events base closure would cause. Most likely, though, they will let us shrink naturally through attrition until such time as our numbers (or a slowdown in the economy) make us a more manageable closure.

Also, I would advise against bidding into CVG if you plan to commute by air. The hub is very small, with only 1 or 2 flights to many of the remaining destinations. In addition, we do not operate the hub on Saturdays, and some long stretches around holidays (read: we only operate flights to ATL, MSP, NYC, DTW, FL, LAX, SEA, SLC, and sometimes BOS or ORD. It’s not unusual to see a 4 day stretch with no hub around Christmas, and we did not operate the hub from the Saturday before to the Saturday after Labor day.) While there are very few that commute to the base, many commute from (though the vast majority go to DTW, some ATL as well.)

If you live in or near CVG, it’s a great base. You’ll get to know they guys we fly with, there are some unique perks to being based here, we’ve got a good CPO team, and it’s easy to communicate with both them and the alpa folks.

 

Thanks guys.

FAJ

 

If you don't mind the heat Las Vegas is an easy commute to SLC or LAX, 5 hours to LA on a weekend if you have friends/relatives there, low property taxes, no income taxes, and housing costs are still pretty low despite a recovery recently that brought houses back up 30-40%. Even with a recovery you're still only looking at $100-125/square foot of house. Not the best schooling if you have kids.

 

I am considering Vegas, but being dual domiciled (AF Res job and Delta LAX based) is what I am after. No personal income tax in NV is huge, that would save 9% vice living in CA.

The other nice thing I have recently considered about LAX is you have potentially 6-7 places to commute from: LAX, SNA, ONT, SAN, PSP, LGB, maybe BUR? All of which fly either fly to SLC and ATL, so hopefully catching a ride to work in the early stages while waiting for an LAX opening will be tolerable.