I'd say DFW LGA is easier. It's nuts between Chicago and Dallas... But I will say, I started using united and never had trouble getting on. 5+ flights a day

 

Flowback cabin seats on United and Delta are the best thing since sliced bread, although United seems to oversell almost as bad as AA (no one is as bad) on certain routes.

 

I agree with this. I will add that most Hub to Hub commute is bad, AA does have a 787 flight in the evening sometimes a 777 mixed in which help a lot for commuting.

United is the best way to go the majority of the time, better leg room, more seat availability vs our own mainline metal which is really sad. When listing to DFW I always notice other Envoy Pilots and FA’s commuting btw DFW-ORD or ORD-DFW on UAL. Doug parker prefers to do away with our Standby Travel/Commuting benefits as a whole if he could, that it was a choice to commute, that back in the day carriers use to charge employees for traveling standby mostly discount fares. All this came out of his mouth in a gist. Used his friend in the banking industry as an example. Said he doesn’t know any other industry that provides such benefits to its employees.

Take that for what it’s worth from our overlord CEO mindset. This is why Allied Pilot Association @ mainline, and. ALPA at Envoy are important.

Also be careful what you say online supporting the company constantly as tho things are always rainbows, the company reps that read these posts take it as “see they are happy, nothing needs to change!” Or worse “We don’t need to negotiate.”

Base closures, base changes, base seniority changes, Regional Airline dynamic changes. Family life, and structures should not routinely be sacrificed. A stable family life = a more stable pilot & overall Flight Crew group providing the best service.

My point is COMMUTING IS NOT A CHOICE! The company has forced it. Many have sold their homes or broken their lease, move their family in base, or in-state base state. Then the company went ahead and closed that base down, reduce flying drastically that one goes on Rsv, displaced Flight crews, make fleet change, etc. Many times in history the company has forced it. It will happen again in the future. Some of you don’t realize how expensive the uproot of a family is, and the impact on the children, the wives or husbands job/career family income. $3,000-$4,000 moving expense does not cut it.

 

Dougweiser might be on to something. I'd trade my travel benefits for more pay. I don't have time to use them anyway.

Of course, we'd also have to close NY for lack of pilots. Probably 80% of that base commutes from somewhere.

 

Commuting is absolutely still a choice. Actually, the ability to commute to work is a perk of this particular industry. How many people in other jobs either have to quit their job or move to the new location when they have a forced job transfer? Millions of Americans deal with this issue every year. Plants and offices open, close, relocate, etc, all the time in other industries.

Pilots, thankfully, have the ability to jump on a plane and keep their job without moving the family should a similar issue arise.

Does commuting suck? Yes. Are job transfers and base closures difficult life changes? Yes. However, we actually have a job transfer protection in commuting as an advantage that most industries don’t provide. You want to get back your in-base QOL after a base reduction or closure? Then do what many Americans do and bite the bullet on a relocation.

My opinion comes from having commuted, then finally making the tough choice to relocate our family so I could be home more. We are saving up to relocate again to get to what we hope is our final stop here in the next few years. If that base closes though, I’ll probably be right back to commuting since that base is actually where we want to call home long term. That will be a CHOICE to commute vs. relocate again.

 

Just to clarify, this was in reference to employees L7+ (directors and above) whom get positive space travel for leisure...essentially A1s to use instead of D2/D1s. This is part of their compensation (and they are taxed on it as income), and the company recognizes that they would loose a lot of talent if L7s+ lost this benefit, but he did absolutely say that the industry should never have offered the A1s to leadership back when it became industry standard back in the 1970s/1980s.

I can certainly be a critic of AAG, but they love these offering standby benefits...it allows them to offer less pay to all employees (management included), and just think if they did not want to offer the ability to commute...they would have to pay $25,000+ per employee every time they displaced.

 

On topic - calls(well, emails) are going out, they've started hiring (or at least interviewing) again.

 

I live about 5 minutes from ORD, no joke I can ride my bike to work. I decided to go with SkyWest since both FOs and CAs are junior on both airframes

 

Yippee!!!!!!!!!

 

Once you're sick of flying 90+ hours a month for sub par pay brought to you by a student council sponsored by the company, we'll still be here.