ddflies

Hi everyone. I'm not a pilot or member of an aircrew. Today, I read about a pilot who built a tiny house to avoid paying for hotels when he commuted to his base airport. He'd been paying hotels $800+/month as part of his commute and wanted to save some money by creating his own tiny house. I was surprised to learn about this, so did some online searching, and discovered crashpads. This brings me full circle to wondering why this pilot, who flew out of Denver for Southwest, had to come up with his own housing solution for his commute. Are crashpads hard to come by, or is it something else? I understand that some people might prefer not to be in a crashpad. Thanks for sharing!

rickair7777

My guess would be that he didn't care for the communal living aspect of a pad, sharing commons spaces, bathrooms, bedrooms, and even bunks in high-cost towns.

I could probably do a community pad if commuting to a line (I have in the past), but I would not sit reserve in a community pad at this point in life. I'd either rent a place, get an RV, or maybe hotels if reserve utilization was high.

avi8orco

Crashpads aren’t necessarily hard to come by. There’s usually plenty of them if you know where to look in the majority of most major city bases. It’s kind of an underground scene because most are wildly in violation of city ordinance and fire codes for capacity.

Just to give you an idea. My crashpad when I was hired based in JFK was a 2300 sq ft house with 3 floors and had 28 beds…yeah. NYC ordinance officers would have had a heart attack if they knew, as a matter of fact, they closed down a similar one across the street when I was there. But some can be a one bedroom apartment with 8 beds. Some offer private rooms, more expensive, but they’re there.

Now, I also know a guy based on FLL who docked his boat at the local marina and that’s his crash pad. Hi sits reserve just offshore within range of his cell phone booster setup he has, fishing pole in hand. So as you can see there’s definitely worse ways to do it but the options are there.

Pilot4000

Even at $800/month, you can probably pay for a lot of hotel rooms for what the tiny house probably cost him.

Cleared4appch

Crashpads aren’t hard to come by. In fact, in most airline cities they’re pretty easy to come by. However there are many problems with them, namely what some of the others hit on above.

Additionally, they don’t allow you to have any semblance of privacy and you never really get anything close to quality sleep, especially for light sleepers like me. It was absolutely horrible on my sleep.

Many of these pads come in a variety of different ‘flavors,’ ranging from a very sketchy roach infested party zone in a dangerous neighborhood, with leaking pipes, to a nice house/townhome that’s brand new in a safe neighborhood with a cleaning service that comes on a weekly basis. Most crashpads are a revolving door with new people constantly moving in and people constantly moving out. I lived in one for a whopping month and a half until I finally had enough of the community living environment. There started to be an increasing amount of drama in the house, mainly amongst some of the flight attendants (and some would try to bring the pilots in on the drama), people stealing each others food (someone stole my freezer pack, never did find out who), constant noise and lack of respect for fellow pad mates, the list goes on.

I could probably tolerate that kind of environment more when I was 20, but at 34 i just don’t have the patience for that crap anymore. I left that place while still on short call reserve, and I happily paid hotels up to $900 a month and very good, quality sleep and had my OWN damn privacy for once lol. Sure I was paying a lot more for hotels, but man was it worth it!

BlueScholar

Until he sells the tiny house and recoups those costs. Platinum status is nice, but you can't get that one back.

rickair7777

Common enough in SFO and LAX as well, both have marinas a short uber from the patch.

For me personally that would be iffy, boats are not always comfortable in bad weather (I spent enough time in the Navy to know). Guess it would depend on the boat but one with plenty of elbow room and good HVAC would be on the pricey side.

Pony Express

I read the same article you did, it was pretty neat.
Crashpads arent hard to come by these days. During covid lockdowns it was a bit more difficult because so many pilots who previously didnt need one were forced back onto reserve, so suddenly the market was flooded with pilots looking for crash pads.

You nailed it with your second to last sentence. Some people just dont want to be in a crash pad, even in spite of the financial savings. It can be a lot like a college dorm, but without the fun of being in college. I think the average 18-22 year old is probably a lot more tolerant of living in messy accomodations, sharing rooms, people coming and going at random times, shared bathroom/shower. But once you grow out of that age...different story. Lots of us want alone time on the road; we spend all day surrounded by other people and pilots, when were off the clock some peace and quiet is appreciated.

hoover

He roams from base to base so having his own mobile crashed was worth it to him. Plus as you see he can stay in way cooler places if he is mobile.
I know lots of people who drag an RV around as their crashpad. Imo it's a good alternative to what's out there.

Fly4FunAA

What about purchasing a house/condo in base and then using that as your crash pad or even renting part of it out to other pilots or people when not there? I understand just getting a hotel every time, but I also don’t want to deal with the hassle of when rooms are booked out or rates for the night go up all the time. Though I would definitely do a hotel over me renting a crash pad, but what if you’re the owner or you have a place in base?