If for instance HOU is my base, will I be able to airline out of IAH?

You'll airline out of IAH most of the time. You'll airline out of HOU a bit too. They'll have you rent car to meet up with your partner and the aircraft at some airport 1-2 hours away. If you fly for a 121 carrier, and you commute, your QOL is gonna improve up the ying yang..... I hear airline guys talk about commuting, and crashpads, I feel like throwing up. Forget that garbage

on the days that you airline to and from work do you usually fly on those days too or is it just positioning

My experience has been that you only reposition on those days. Last trip, I airlined to Boston on Day 1, and on Day 7, airlined from FLL to home.

It depends on the day and the fleet. Don't count on positioning only on day 1 and 7. There are many times when you will airline to a plane and fly a few legs. There are also times when you fly two legs and then airline home. distance from home doesn't seem to play a part at all in whether or not you fly on day 1 or 7.

In short, plan on working those days.

I think the simplest way of explaning this is:

You are responsible for getting yourself to your crew base airport at show time on day 1 and getting yourself home from that crew base on day last. (There's is an exception for last day travel if you want to return to a different city, but we won't get into that in this example)

If the company wants you to begin travel at a different airport, usually because of cheaper airfare, you'll receive a briefing for it as part of your duty day after showing at the crew base. It could be a taxi, limo or rental car to a nearby field to airline out or fly an NJA plane out. Rarely, you might even deadhead with another NJA crew on a ferry flight. Either way, it's on the company's dime and time after show at the crew base.

For example, my crew base is DAL, but over the last year I've started my tours with an airline ride out of DFW about 75% of the time. About 20% is airline out of DAL. The other 5% or so has been flying a NetJets plane out of some field in the dallas area. This varies by fleet, city and from person to person, so don't take that as any kind of average.

-NTFB

Thanks for the answer, seems like a good deal worth exploring.

What is the deal with NJA hiring furloughed 121 legacy guys? Will they even touch furloughed guys and if they do will they require you to resign your seniority? Just wondering because I may be in that category here soon. Don't ever want to commute again so that 100 base thing is very attractive.

I don't know if they make you give up your number but-

We have a bunch of guys who passed on the recall from a major, so that tells me they allowed guys to keep their airline seniority numbers. But that was back in 2001-2002, NJ needed pilots, badly. Times have changed, don't know how it is now.

As far as the commute, I did it for 2 years. NEVER AGAIN, forget that.

I know commuting makes your life miserable. It took me 10 years to get based where I want to live and not commute. Now with the merger mess ramping up, I'll be lucky to have my base remain a hub city. I won't move and I won't commute again. If I get furloughed or the hub shuts down, I think the only flying job I'll try to get is NetJets so I can live where I want to live. If I don't get that I think I'll give up on the flying career.