How do crew bases work?
 

Hello!

I am slightly confused on the topic of "crew bases". Is this like a secondary hub for crew members? Say if a company has a crew base in LAX and a major hub in ATL do those crew members living in LAX get positive space commuting to atl? what is exactly the benefit or point of having a crew base?

sidenote, does delta still have a LAX crew base? Because I am trying to non rev from ATL-LAX and I heard from a fellow ramper that it can be hell because of all the FA's and pilots that list for those flights at the last minute.

Thanks!

FlyHigh

Pilots and flight attendents are assigned to bases. Usually crew bases are in the same cities where an airline has a hub because lots of flights originate and terminate there.

So, Delta has crew bases in places like ATL, MSP, JFK, LAX, SLC. As a crew member, your trip generally starts and finishes in your crew base. Occasionally, a deadhead will be built into a pairing to transport you to your flight.

However, if you elect to live somewhere other than your crew base, you become a "commuter" and have to get to/from work on your own. Usually this is accomplished by jumpseating or non-revving, but in some cases, people will buy cheap tickets if they only have to commute to work a couple times a month.

Some airlines and corporate operations have "home basing." They buy you a ticket to wherever your airplane is. You fly your scheduled days of flying. Then they buy you a ticket home from where ever your airplane is. This option is popular with mostly charter airlines.

DAL has a crew base at LAX. But the problem here is not really LAX-based crews. LA is pretty senior so anybody who did not want to live in SOCAL would choose another more junior base. I would guess the majority of the LAX crews drive to work, or maybe hop on a commuter from san diego or the bay area.

Your problem is ATL...any non-revving through ATL is asking for trouble. I avoid it like the plague.

I was gonna start a thread about this Friday night, however, I didn't want to come across as putting the cart before the horse so to speak.:o

At any rate, say for instance if I'm hired by Regional Airline XYZ and they have a base in ATL. How do newly hired FO's get the base they want? How does the seniority thing work?





atp

Heres the simple version....

Say your airline has 400 pilots. 200 pilots in each seat (captain and FO) and 2 bases of equal size (say JFK and LAX)... 100 captains and 100 FOs in each base. Seniority is done in the order in which you are hired.

You then have 4 positions...

JFK CA
LAX CA
JFK FO
LAX FO

Pilot #1 gets to pick where they want to be. Pilot #2 gets to pick where they want to be as long as there are remaining spots in that position. Say all top 100 pilots want JFK CA. Pilot #101, although he wants JFK CA, he cannot hold it and gets his choice of the remaining 3 bases. If being in JFK is important to him, he may bid JFK FO waiting for JFK CA to open up. If being a CA is important to him, he may bid LAX CA waiting for JFK CA to open up. All the way down to pilot #400 who gets the last spot remaining. Typically, once you are in a position, you cannot be pushed out of it.

When people move on, a base gets bigger, or something like that, they may need 10 additional pilots for JFK CA. The top 10 pilots in other positions that want it will get it. This may result in less than 100 pilots being in the remaining base. Say these 10 JFK CA spots are filled and there is a net loss of 10 LAX FOs.

Now the airline has to hire. They need 10 pilots and they will all be sent to LAX as FOs. If JFK is in high demand, for the foreseeable future, every opening in JFK may be filled by senior LAX pilots. You might not be able to hold JFK until 50 pilots above you are given the opportunity. Or it could be the other way around.


Hope that clears things up. Typically the least desirable base has the best seniority movement (people getting out)... that means better schedules quicker and quicker upgrade. If you want a base where everyone wants to be, prepared to wait a long time for anything to happen. You may even have to wait years to be able to be a reserve FO.

And if you are last on the list, you have zero control on life. At EAL KBOS, we had the bottom number, a gal named Rose. For four years, she was in KMIA during the summer and KBOS in the winter, naturally B727 SO on reserve. So, every semi-annual Section 28 bid, she knew the results immediately. It didn't matter if pilots above her retired, died, whatever.

GF

What about newly hired FO's? I mean those who get hired by Regional Airline XYZ; successfully complete XYZ's ground school and IOE. Outta that class, how is seniority determined? The a/c that the FO gets? Base?

What I've been told before is that seniority can be determined by age or SSN or anything really; for example, oldest one in the class gets choice of a/c and base. Maybe the top three depending on the number of students in that class. Any truth to that?



atp

Everyone hired on a given day has seniority doled out based on company rules. At my company it is age: oldest senior. At another company, it is by last digit of SSN. I think one company used completion of IOE. Conceivably, it could be based on a drawing of straws. Ultimately, it is up to the company and/or pilot group.

Yes.

At my company, in birthday order. At others, first digit of your SSN last four, lowest to highest or highest to lowest or other random methods.

You'll fill out a dream sheet and rank the all the FO positions first to last. Then when they figure out which positions are available in the company, they'll go one by one in order of how they ranked the class, and assign each person the next best available position in order of that person's dream sheet. It seems most places the first 2 or 3 get a desirable seat/base, the rest of the class goes to the most junior seat/base.