Commute from DFW / DAL NW
 

With someone with some insight, what is the easiest commute from DFW to .... ATL, NYC, SLC, CVG, LAX, MSP, MEM, SEA, DTW

I know what ATL is like. Just trying to figure out were I would want to be based in the future.

I don't commute to DFW, but have many NW/AA/SW pilots jumpseat with us to/from MSP/DFW.

From what I hear, many do commute and they say it’s not a bad commute from MSP to DFW and back. Also, on the CRJ-900, even at MTOW, I have not yet experienced anyone let go from the jumpseat due to weight restriction. Although, the jump seat itself is not the most comfortable, but I ALWAYS pull my seat as much forward as possible to let the jumpseater stretch her/her legs behind my seat and that makes it somewhat a comfortable ride rather than sitting there with knees bent for 1.5 to 2 hour ride.

I commute from DFW to NYC. It's a long commute, but I've never had much of a problem. AA has a flight to LGA about every hour. The only problem is when you fly up, the first flight doesn't arrive until about 11:00 AM. So if you have a report before noon, you'd have to come up the night before.

CVG is alright. But keep in mind its all RJ's. 4 DL flights and about 6 Eagle flight. MEM is close and easy. And if you get done with a trip really late, you can always hop on FedEx to get home. The rest well, I'm not sure. But AA has lots of flights to all those cities and they usually treat me very well.

I've flown with guys that need at least 18 hours to feel comfy about showing up at LAX on time. They wouldn't even dare to try it from SLC. We still have quite a few commuter to the west coast, though the "crowd" isnt' as bad as from ATL. It's still competitive, since LAX it's a AA hub, and the super 80 has only 1 JS, and their JS policy isn't quite commuter friendly "sometimes".

On the other hand, in my previous life I've flown MSP->DFW quite a bit, and usually I didn't get many JS. DTW->DFW was about the same. I think it'll depend if our marketing start to pull down the combined number of flights between those cities to make commuters cringe. Hope it helped.

I currently commute to MSP from DFW. Both us and AA have 6 per day each way and the good news is they are, in general, spaced enough apart to make the dash between terminals. The bad news is we are running 4 of the 6 as 76 seat RJs, only the two early morning departures are A-319s. Coming home, of course, the Airbusses are the two last shots home which, of course, is great.

I've done DTW in the past. The time zone is a pain which you already know going to ATL. AA is also a good option but they tend to be more wingtip and they are in the other terminal in DTW for coming home. Plus, we are down to 4 flights per day up to DTW (down from 6).

I did MEM years ago, easy commute but only 3 flights per day. Don't know if its still the case but back in the day, NWA would "take" the DFW jet for something else if needed because they knew they could throw people on AA. Real pain for planning.

Overall, I think MSP is the easiest of the old NWA three. Good luck, hope we get some bigger jets in here. AA still runs MD-80s or 737 and they are full. We could fill our's too if we tried.

Ferd

My better half works in yield management for NW. The analyst for the DFW market is one of the tightest in the company. Good for revenue, bad for commuters. DFW is probibly one of the most difficult commutes from MSP, DTW and MEM on NW for that reason (I've done MSP-DFW...it isn't fun). AA on the other hand tends to have a few seats on every flight but heavy travel periods will probibly require a two-leg commute.