With all due respect how are you ready to upgrade if you haven’t been flying 121 and have been 91? Not saying you’re not ready but being ready to upgrade can mean your QOL will be affected heavily.

You’re in a tough spot if you come to envoy since you’ll likely be forced to upgrade no matter what so your QOL be affected regardless. Living in base is the difference from being mentally stable to mentally drained. Commuting to reserve is a death sentence. If you can live in base it’s not bad as you’re home with family and your new born.

Starting young family and airline career at the same time while commuting is not the best of plans. You didn't answer in regards to local family support but that really helps too.

I strongly advise to move to the base you get awarded wherever you're hired. If you can move to a base with local family support as well, even better. If you can't live in base, please live with local family support.

Even if your wife doesn't like the idea of moving, she'll hate you're new commuting lifestyle even more... far more. Even if she doesn't know it now. And you will too.

Live in base and it's the easiest job on earth. I "work" 5 days a month or so as a 145 FO in Dallas. Commute and it will be real tough on your family. Welcome to message me if you want my take on it and more details

Actually, if you’re in RDU you can drive to CLT at Piedmont. You’ll be able to hold it within your first bid in training as an FO and about 18 months as a CA.

Once you get through training, there’s relatively minimal reserve. Still low pay, still 90 min call out, still 11 days off but junior captains tend to have build up lines and fly 50-60hrs a month from the DECs I’ve talked to.

If you’re considering commuting to Envoy, PDT may be a sustainable option for you. Not sure if you’re DEC material but you can bid for upgrade as soon as you want and have the time if you aren’t.

I completely agree with this. Happy wife equals happy life. PDT will eventually get their training fixed but if you can drive to work, then absolutely do it. Reserve for a commuter at Envoy is tough. Make your life as easy as you possibly can.

I have 920 hours 121 time.

I like PDT, and the fact I could hold CLT again, and wouldn’t be opposed to PHL. My issue is the training backlog. I already work very little and sitting at home only flying 15 hours a month is killing me. I’m salary, so the money is fine, but I want to be flying. Waiting a year to complete training at PST seems unbearable.

I'm not sure PDT is where you want to go for QOL purposes. The main issue at PDT is QOL due to schedules. There are other reasons to make a case for PDT but not schedules. Doesn't PSA have CLT as well? CLT and SAP seems like an easy choice for me.

Yes Envoy reserve commuting is unbearable. Absolutely the worst.

I’m prior PSA. Left under good terms for a desk job and realized I wasn’t built to fly a desk. Obviously would be nice if I could slide back into my seniority but clearly that’s not happening 😑

That’s a fair point. The plus side to the training backlog if you go in as a FO is that you can continue to fly on your own outside of PDT for a period of time after indoc. I know several who took a week off from their old job for PDT indoc and went back to work until ground school started at PDT.

The second plus side for being a new parent may be that you can spend many days a month at home not flying vs many days a month in a crash pad an not flying.

If you go in as a DEC (which you may qualify for since you need 90hrs of OE... you’ll have to research that) your training timeline will be compressed since PDT is critically short on CAs and are pushing DECs through much more quickly, especially since they’re paying them as CAs on day one.