Yup. The fact that this entire SWA displacement thing appears to have sprung directly from the creation of red-eyes that couldn't be staffed from West Coast bases, because of (I believe) a SWAPA prohibition on pairings starting with redeyes, is insane. Basically I have friends living on the West Coast , commuting to BWI to sit short call reserve, which then could include a trip back west followed by a red-eye back east and then a commute home. I mean it's just bananas. It would make so much more sense to staff the redeyes with West Coast crews and avoid/ reduce displacements.

But I don't work there so I may not have the most accurate info. Still boggles the mind, though.

Your assertions on why I’d steer someone towards AA vs. SWA nowadays.

If that’s in the CBA, I don’t remember it. They want to staff from the east coast because the CBA requires 15 hrs rest after a red eye. So if you land at 0530…you can’t report until 2030. There are certainly flights that late going back west, so it could be done. They just choose not to and end the pairing with the red eye.

We also don’t have red eye reserve. So if someone calls off out west, they have to staff it via OT vs awarding the original pairing to a PM rsv in a east cost base since Day 1 doesn’t have a leg that transits 0200. Red eye rsv is coming at the end of Q4 so we’ll see if anything changes.

Changing the way the company constructs redeyes is not the answer. I was actually amazed that they do it the way they do. I have taken a peek at a United A320 4 day trip and it made me want to pick up the phone and call fatigued. It was min rest turns to redeye transcon, one long overnight, rinse and repeat. I was astounded. I am flying a SWA redeye trip next week that I picked up out of giveaway. It has 30 hours in an amazing location and gets me back to base in time to commute home and grab some rest. People bid them to give them away because they are that good. That's how redeye trips should be.

Anybody displaced in the last 2 years should be home in a few months. The answer to the displacement problem lies in changing contract language to make it difficult or impossible for the company to repeat the current scenario.

That’s literally every trip at UA. It’s astounding.

Lol. Im a small west coast Bus base. I routinely fly 5 legs in a 4 day or 4 legs in a 3 day. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Sorry, left out /s or 🙄 from my comment. I don’t even understand what dude describes. A turn into a red eye..? To me a turn is a 1 day trip from base, back to base🤷‍♂️. So I’m not sure how a turn goes into a red eye. Regardless, I was being sarcastic, as even in my first year I did no red eyes that weren’t by my choosing; albeit on the 737.

That must have been a west coast UAL trip. I haven’t flown a red eye on the east coast in nearly a decade. There just aren’t many.

Yeah, it was a junior pilot and it was a brutal trip, but then she was looking for a particularly bad example to show us. Sorry about the misnomer above, it obviously wasn't a turn. She had two min rest days either before or after a redeye, though, which was unbelievable to me, and two redeyes embedded in one trip. The redeye trips at SWA are very gentlemanly in comparison. That's what I was getting at. I am sure eventually they will figure out that we can do it much more efficiently and hammer us.

we have some 4 day trips at UA that’s are something like

Day 1: 1or 2 legs, end up on the west coast. Long layover (25-ish hours)

Day 2: Redeye to east coast. 12 hour layover day sleep.

Day 3, Fly back to west coast (not technically a redeye, but lands at 2100-0000 west coast), 12 hour layover

Day 4: 1 or 2 legs on last day home.

I don’t know how anyone building those trips think it’s humane.