Precontact

I think you need to be at United then.

Sparre

And if United hired me now, I might start training in Jan 2019, if I'm lucky. No thanks.

Sparre

Are there any larger aircraft flying out of EWR now? I hear the 320 fleet is expanding rapidly. Do you see it as a future option at EWR?

I can get to LGA & JFK from my house, just don't want to deal with the traffic if there are options at EWR; copy all on "things change."

NWA320pilot

The 717, 320 and 737 (not sure on the 7er) are currently originating rotations out of EWR. Both the 737 and 320 fleets have future aircraft deliveries scheduled with the airbus having the most by far.

One other point is the amount of originating trips out of EWR is very limited compared to the other 2 NYC airports.

GogglesPisano

Bottom line:

If you want EWR bid UAL.
If you're at DAL and want EWR bid NYC717. The other fleets may occasionally have EWR trips but it's extremely sporadic (as in oftentimes none.)

Any other scenario and you're crossing bridges and paying tolls (just like a lot of DAL pilots who live in PA/NJ are doing.)

It's not so bad: #podcasts.

MasterOfPuppets

So you would give up flying the 777, 787, 756 strictly out of EWR because you don't want to wait 6 months in a worse case scenario? EWR is the second most junior base for UA behind SFO, The career progression to line holder, CA and WB is tremendous. Not to mention the 756 flying in EWR is the best flying at the entire airline and the 737 flying is pretty dang good too. 6 Months seems like a very short wait for all that......

I mean go to whoever hires you first and if DL has already hired you then you should go there for sure. However why not keep applying to UA so you can get the base you truly desire? UA at EWR will always be a base will your fleet at DL always have EWR only departures?

PilotJ3

320 has currently no EWR originating rotations, I think for about almost a year.

Han Solo

/agree

Assuming you've got a DAL cjo and not one from UAL just take the DAL job and see how things pan out. If you can then get hired by UAL you can move where EWR can be a more reliable base for you. Or maybe you just look really good in double breasted and will decide to stay here.

gloopy

No matter which AC you get, marketing runs the show with total and complete impunity. They will dump tons of EWR trips into a category for one month or a few years with no ability to predict, then pull them way down or eliminate them altogether. Even when an AC has EWR trips, there is a built in contingent of pilots there already who prefer EWR trips, so while most NYC pilots don't prefer them, you have built in competition of senior pilots for the few that are there.

Right now, and its been that way for a while, the 717 is the king of EWR for DL. Too lazy to spreadsheet it, but IIRC anywhere from 25-33% of its trips have been EWR most months. However its not a big category, and again you will be competing with lots of west NYC locals but should be able to get EWR trips some of the time or some months even all of the month.

For now.

We have another AC on the way and its similar size as the 717 and will be based somewhere in NYC. We won't really know how it will be deployed there until a few years after its initially deployed there.

Also consider that EWR717 may not be the QOL you're looking for. When you're brand new and on the bottom anyway, one or two EWR trips may be a huge perk. But NYC717 trips are some of the worst in the system. One month they bragged about reaching 25% commutability in the trip mix. That means they all start early and finish late, work you hard and you'll get fewer days off.

As we get more 330's you'll likely notice in a year or two that getting to JFK for longer, easier trips and late reports/earlier releases may eclipse the EWR/JFK drive differential by a wide margin.

Or even when you're in a category where you could get EWR trips, if there are better trips out of JFK/LGA you may find yourself bidding those if they are much better trips, which sometimes they are.

Monthly schedules out of JFK/LGA that would give you 2,3 or 4 extra days off compared to a redlined early report late release EWR schedule means 24, 36 or 48 additional days off per year.

Best advice is to just accept the reality that EWR is a small micro climate at DL and even when you get to where you can sharpshoot only those pairings, you may not value it as highly as you do when you're new and everything else is equal anyway, and network can (and likely will) easily shift them away any given month anyway, sometimes for a while.

Is that drive differential worth walking away from 1000 pilots junior to you to start over at UAL? IMO not even remotely close, but YMMV.