I proffered for every fight that came up. And i tried to get open time as much as possible.

Living in base has nothing to do with getting more flying, just that it's not as annoying to be on reserve if you don't have to commute in on your days off and sit at a hotel or crash-pad all day.

I used reserve days to do things like housework, exercise, spend time with family or just hang out at home etc. Thats way better than sitting in a hotel or crash pad all day for 4 days and not flying.

reserve is a rollercoaster of flying a bunch or not at all. It can vary a lot.

 

Well, you do have to be in the base to do the OT. Which means commuting in on a day off for commuters, maybe even before you know if you're going to get awarded the OT if your commuter situation is bad enough and you need a 2x flight buffer for policy.

 

This is really interesting. I flew with a guy the other day who is married to a CA at a regional (not saying if it's this one or not, don't want to get anyone in trouble)... and he said that she almost NEVER flies for months at a time, and will then bid turns for a month to get some time, then go back to bidding reserves.

I couldn't believe it! She's very senior, 20 plus years, absolutely ZERO desire to get into the grind of a lifestyle like Southwest or Jet Blue, where it's not as golden as it has been in the past, but it's still not hard to break $400k with bonus and clever bidding, working holidays, selling back vacation. I had 2 years that tipped $500k! This year will be a lot less because I am simply tired.

But man, it just made me think, that's a clever move if you wanted to be with someone who gets the airline lifestyle, yet want to have a family with a wife who is home with the kids most of the time. They have grandparents who can step in at a moments notice if she were to get called.

 

Did you have to go to the sim for landing currency, or was the timing such that you didn’t? At what point does the company assign flying or schedule you for a sim?

 

I had to go back for recurrent training which hacked the landing currency. Don't really know what they would do otherwise.