ATL supposedly has the most commuters. So the jump seats will be very competitive.

Maybe an actual ATL commuter will pipe in. I looked at the typical busy nights, Mon/Tues inbound (ATL-MEM) and the same outbound on Friday (MEM-ATL) for the next two weeks. There are usually two night flights leaving between 2130-2230L with a mix of A300, 767 or MD-10. Each a/c has at least 4 seats or more. There are plenty of seats open tomorrow (start of Aug bidmonth) and the following week as well as at the end of each week coming back to ATL. Maybe that's a summer anomaly, but I don't see a big issue with seats in that small snap-shot. Add to that the fact that your currently employer has what appears to be 10 non-stops each day and I'd say you have some options.

Seems like bailing on an in domicile gig with Delta to commute to MEM would be a tough call. Good luck with the interview.

How would life be for a DC-area commuter (closet to me is BWI)? Are there plenty of deadheads but they senior? I would imagine having BWI, IAD, DCA and PHL within driving distance would make life easier.


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Sunday mornings (no BWI flights) and Monday/Friday nights are tough if you are trying to get to Mem but getting to IND or EWR is easy most nights. I probably would not try to commute to an IND domicile but holding east coast DH lines is very easy.

Lag,
Maybe I'm not reading this right, but these two statements don't seem to go together. If getting to IND is easy, why is commuting there a bad option? :confused:

Also, holding east coast DH lines doesn't seem to hinge on where he's commuting out of.

I've read this thread through and I see the phrase "holding a DH line" quite often. I would appreciate it if a Fedex pilot can explain this to a newbie.

Thanks in advance!

It means a monthly schedule of trips that has deadheads -- company-paid commercial travel to stage you for your trip -- at the beginning, end, or (best) at both ends.

Since deadheads pay 100%, and are positive space travel, the miles get credited to your personal frequent flyer account, and the deadheads can be re-scheduled to/from your home instead of just to/from your domicile (thereby eliminating the unpaid commute to/from work), bidding DH lines is apparently quite desirable.

Domestically, most of the first flights on any given business week are Monday night inbounds to the hubs. This is because there isn't any service on Sundays and nothing new enters the system until the packages dropped off all day Monday. So, having a bunch of MEM or IND based pilots ready to fly out of the domiciles doesn't help when the packages are at all the out bases ready to come in for the sort Monday night.

Long story short - sorry. FedEx needs pilots in place Monday night at the out stations to fly inbound. So, they deadhead them from their domicile to the outstation Monday morning or maybe Sunday afternoon. They layover and are ready to fly Monday night with the inbound freight to start their week.

So, a deadhead line allows a commuting pilot to get paid to use a commercial flight from their home town to the out station on their trip rather than commute on their own time to their domicile. The scheduled DH ticket from domicile can be cancelled and the $$ used for the ticket the pilot actually needs (as well as other travel expenses if there is extra). Best case scenario is the pilot lives in the city he's supposed to DH to and stays home until it's time to drive to the airport and operate out.

Some trips have the same arrangement at the end as well, since the last flights of the week are typically outbound. These types of lines are very desirable for commuters for obvious reasons.

Getting to Indy for the first reserve shift on Monday night might be tough if you are riding the Monday night IAD to IND Airbus. Same goes for getting home on Thirsday nite Friday morning. That and my opinion that commuting and IND domicile are not a good match, mainly due to the 4 night work week.

The train from BWI makes many east coast DHs if not a pleasure, certainly not very stressful. Along with bank friendly.

Thank you Hacker and Adlerdriver.

That clears it right up. For someone that wants to live in the NYC area, I imagine that this would be nice setup if they can hold those lines that include deadheads to EWR.