I lived in base for the first 28 years of my career at Delta. Lived just west of Roswell. 30 mile drive. Early on I enjoyed the drive. Employee parking was on the airport. Little Traffic. A late night block in afforded the opportunity for an "Italian tune up".
Parking lot moved. Employee buses became unreliable and crowded. Traffic became a nightmare. 30 miles occasionally taking up to 2 hours.

I started commuting 2 years ago to live on the coast. Never was a commuter before. I'm senior and bid accordingly. I can honestly say that my commute is less stressful than the drive, lot and bus when I lived in "The ATL".
Living where you want to means a lot.

​​​​​​This. Commuting is a mentality. Would I prefer it if my home city and my base were the same? Sure. Is it this soul sucking, live ending thing? No. Live where you need to be happy. If that means you spend a few hours on each end of the trip getting back and forth, oh well. Get a few good books.

Thank you everyone for the thoughtful insights and different perspectives. In the end it will be 80% my wife's call but some of the points brought up give me more to think about.

Denville? Have you been to the new(ish) Diamond Springs brewery downtown?

Have not yet. I'm at Denville Hardware a lot and get my hair cut across the street from the brewery.

I'm on the west side of Dixons Pond off Farber Hill

No urgency. Paying down our home aggressively doesn't make much sense when the interest is so low.

If you have a loan under 4% it makes more sense to pay the minimum and put the extra into savings.

yeah with some people having sub 2% 30 year mortgages right now it would be insane to pay it off early. You’d effectively be throwing away money for no reason.

It usually gets spent in some “need” that pops up.

When it’s not available it doesn’t get spent.

I paid off my 3.75% RJ fo home, and was able to bring over 200k to closing on a “mainline fo” home.

Hard to itemize deductions as an RJ pilot so the mortgage interest deduction is a wash.

The loss of investing the money is real, but it is the price of risking poor discipline/ material fights of cash just sitting around looking for a reason to be spent.

Whenever/if interest rates drop back to <4% a cash out refi is only a phone call away.

People can save money if they don’t buy cigarettes. It doesn’t always work based on math.

I have bought 5 houses. 7.5% was the highest interest. 2.5% the lowest. Refinanced 3 or 4 times on different houses.

Things I have learned.

My anticipated income did not come to fruition for many many years.

No house is a dream house. Tastes change, family size changes, areas change. None is the ultimate. I would need 4 at once to satisfy every want. Beach, Lake, Ski, home. All you need is a 1 roof. The other 3 are for fun and vacations. Renting is cheaper than buying.

Our least favorite house is by far the longest place I have lived in.

Many people live in low tax states and many send their kids to private schools.

Most of my friends drive nicer cars than me.

Save more than you think you can afford. I thank my young self for maxing my 401K every year over 25+ years. Roth 401K for several years too.

The cost of owning a house has historically benefited one's financial situation but taxes, roofs, association fees, maintenance, insurance, etc. all cost something. Prepare and anticipate. During Covid I bought 3 refrigerators, 2 ovens, a dishwasher, and a microwave. All with in 6 months. They don't make them like they used to.

Put money into a 529. You can pass it on and/or roll it into an Roth IRA in the kids name. 30K I think. You, spouse, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, can all use it too.

Do not commute. By far the largest negative to this job. I hate it.

Sometimes I feel like an absent dad. That is part of the job. For some reason my spouse and kids still like me. At least I think they do.

Enjoy the ride. It's a wonderful job. Take care of your health. Tell your spouse how beautiful they are, hug the kids, and give back. Someone helped each and every one of us along the way. Give it back.

You made a lot of good points until you give the absolute advice of do not commute. Perhaps you don't like commuting based on a variety of factors but commuting, itself, is not had or evil

All commutes suck, some just suck more than others!

In your opinion.

Correct. Commuting isn't for everyone. It's possible to admit that there are people who happily commute every day of their career. "Commuting sucks" isn't a universal truth

It is a universal truth. The suck factor however has to be weighed by the potential gains living somewhere you enjoy. In the end I chose to live where I wanted regardless of the commute or potential taxes.

People commute for lots of reasons with varying satisfaction, but nobody prefers it. Nobody moves out of base because they want to commute. Plenty of people do the reverse.

Now if you want to define "sucks" as something hideously awful, then yeah, you have an argument.

That's exactly the argument I'm making. No one is saying that commuting is bliss. Technically, in terms of getting to work, the most ideal circumstance is living in the airport hotel and anything further away from that is worse. Some people choose to make the claim that because it's worse than the ideal, it's awful. That's not how anything works.

What I have said is that commuting is a mindset. You can choose to believe that it is awful and a drain on your soul, or you can make the best of the time. You can read books, watch movies, sleep, catch up with friends and so on to pass the additional time. Purely in terms of driving to work vs commuting to work, yes, living in base is superior. But I don't look at it in such simple-minded terms. I enthusiastically choose to spend a few extra hours a week commuting to trips because it makes me happier than if I lived right next to ATL. And, on the not so rare occasions where I can get 30 hour layovers in my home city, I enjoy it even more. Or DHs to or from my home city or another base.

What does nobody prefers it mean. I would quit if I weren’t allowed to commute.

What sucks is my home airport is not my domicile. I would definitely prefer that.

You don't prefer commuting. You prefer living where you live.

You commute because the random results of what you like and what's available near base don't overlap. Commuting is a means to an end.

You don't commute because you want to commute. Nobody moves out of base just because everything about their life is good but it would be better if they could jumpseat more.

It's an absurd argument. People don't move an hour away from their base because they like driving to work. But no one is making the argument that driving to work is THE WORST

You own 4 houses? 3 for "fun"?

​​​​​​ Try and read that again....

Who the hell wants to do 4+ day trips? I personally like taking my kids to school or picking them up or going to soccer practice. Disappearing for half the week every week isn’t really favorable. That’s the true disadvantage to commuting IMO, Its the type of trips you have to fly to be a commuter. And anyone says they don’t like driving to the airport every day or every other day, what the heck do you do on overnights? Sleep in the airport? You still sit in traffic on the way to and from the hotel.

I don't know if you realize this, but most places day turns are very limited and mostly to the most senior pilots. Besides that, I and lots of other people like spending time on the road. The international guys seem to all love their international layovers. I have places I like to go and spend time at a lot of cities we layover in.

Again, your truth is not universal. So you want to do day turns? Cool. You can have them.

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You say he’s generalizing, then you say turns only go senior. I fly turns all the time, and have been in both seats. On property less than 3 years. I frequently walk in my door by scheduled block in time, and almost always by end of debrief. Nobody would go from that scenario to commuting and say commuting doesn’t suck. It does, relatively speaking. It’s still better than 99% of other jobs, but that’s not the comparison here.

Also, from a strictly numbers standpoint, commuting is expensive in terms of time. TAFB rig is 3.5:1 at my airline, and I’m guessing similar at most legacies. So assuming you’re averaging $400/hr with company DC, that’s roughly $110/hr that you’re not getting paid for commuting. A four hour commute each direction is almost $1k per trip. That time adds up over a career.

Of course none of this takes into account family requirements for living locations, but it shouldn’t be swept under the rug when making decisions. The difference in earning potential when living in base is massive.

Flew a trip once with all layovers in my home town. Car was at the airport so I told the skipper I was gonna spend my nights at the house. He couldn’t believe I would “waste” all that time driving home. Meanwhile he’s got a 20 min van ride to the hotel…

He lived in base, 20 min from the parking lot but still bid 5 day trips so he wouldn’t have to drive to work more than he needed to. Different strokes I guess…

If I want to, I can spend more time home as a commuter than a non commuter. Unless the person can bid day trips constantly, at this moment of my life is a non issue.

For me I would need 13+hr overnights to make it work.

What is so great about spending time on the road at this job? It's one thing to have 30+ hour layovers in fun and interesting places, but at my airline the average layover is 12-16 hours in places like ATL, BWI, DFW, etc. It gets old.

Our gravy trips with cool long layovers go more senior than day turns.

I would rather do a turn and go home if that is an option, or an easy two day, and save the longer trips for nonrev adventures.

Saying “commuting, itself, is not had or evil”, isn’t a universal truth either.

Bahahahahahaha. Surely you can’t be serious. GMAFB.

That's not the argument I'm making. I'm saying it's not good or bad, in itself, but is definitely based on each person's circumstance. As I've said, without considering any other factors other than distance to the airport, the argument you are making is that anyone who doesn't live in College Park is crazy for not doing it. Each person's circumstance and priorities are different. You might think that time is wasted while other find happiness in sacrificing an extra few hours a week so that their remaining time off is near friends and family.

It’s “Shirley.”

Always good to live within your means, especially with an election coming up. With small children at home, financial stability needs to be a priority—you need to have a “furlough/emergency/rainy day” fund, especially when junior in the airlines. Managing debt now will pay off big later. Is tripling a mortgage wise right now? Only you and your family can make that choice—and it’s important.

Show me where I made such an argument.

So uhh, how about them positive space commutes? We pushing for those on the next go at contracts, y'all?

I hope so. Or home basing for X amount of pilots at least :D

The thing is it’s not just a couple bourse on the front and back end it’s loads of time on the actual works days. While the commuter is sitting at the hotel wasting away prior to show and after release each day the in base pilot saw their kids off to school or picked them up, got house projects done, went fishing, played golf, hiking, cycling, or took his wife to lunch.

This all on the actual work days where if you compared the schedules of the two pilots side by side it may look like they are working the same amount of days but in reality the in base pilot it’s living a real life. It doesn’t have to be turns either, I could be two days stacked together or mixed with turns or single days off in the middle for a special event. The flexibility gained and real quality time at home manufactured living in base isn’t just a couple hours.

Something like 10% of trips in my category are day trips. What you are describing is available to a very small minority of people at all airlines. Sometimes, my wife has to travel for work too. We have all chosen our particular work lifestyles. It's completely absurd to try and compare the day turn lifestyle to the remaining 90% of pilots at an airline. You can have it. I wouldn't sacrifice my living near family and friends to move to ATL to do island turns even if my seniority could hold it. It's amazing you can't comprehend that people have different priorities than you.
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I commuted for 8 years and I can fathom having to do it again someday for sure. I can comprehend.

Doesn’t delta have trip mix requirements in the CBA?

Delta's trip mix is horrible. In order to hold day trips on the 737 as an FO in Atlanta you need to probably be top 5% and those guys are all like 20 years seniority or so. There are ways to drop your schedule and pick up broken up day trips, but that takes work and doesn't always work out. Somewhere like LAX there are even fewer day trips and you rarely see anyone with an entire line of them. It's not like an LCC or even a regional where once you get some decent seniority you can do day trips. Delta likes to build 4-5 day trips as much as they can.