how easy is it to change bases? your home base is just where they fly you out of on an airline to get wherever your plane is from its last trip, correct? i wouldnt think it would be that much of a problem would it, cause its not like a 121 airline where you need a vacancy in the base and bases may be overstaffed or understaffed?

 

At NJA they need to offer every new FO seat and the domicile it is for to the current pilots before it can be filled. They have had two or three big FO bids out since this system came into effect around last summer (no movement for post contract hires allowed before a letter of agreement was signed). This is not the easiest way to swap bases since they don't offer every airplane SIC slot in every domicile in the new bids. In the last mass bid award, I believe there were only 3 or 4 pilots who did the swap. If you make the change this way you cannot bid to another base for 2 years (unless you bid in for an upgrade slot). I looked through all the FO seats offered up and there were very few for TEB and PBI, a little more for DAL, some for CMH, and about 3/4 for LAX.

The other way to swap is if you can find a current FO to swap with. This way doesn't give any domicile lock after making the switch.

I have no idea why they feel they need to keep the domicile numbers as they do since most do airline most of the time to and from the airplane, but that is the deal as is it is now.