Ski Patrol

[quote=APM145;547272]
There are ALPA carriers that have homebasing.
quote]

Who?
Not trying to say one is better over the other but it seems their priorities are different.

Ski Patrol

Mech's and FA's if they want it then bargain for it. Can't see why Mech's would need it.

To big a cost....well that's all relative. What do the pilots want to bargain for next time around.

acl65pilot

I know of many Mechanics that live in the DFW area that did not move when the base was closed. I also know of guys that live in TPA that commute to ATL each week for work.
There are even some guys that two leg commute from TPA and DFW to GDL (MMGL) to work on our over site of the M88 heavy mtc done my AeroMexico. There are guys that would like this.
It is just not limited to the pilots.

joepilot

FAR 121 "Transportation, not local in nature, provided by the certificate holder, shall not be considered as part of any required rest period."

It looks like this would be legal internationally, since there are no required predeparture rest periods or max duty times, but not domestically.

Joe

MoonShot

Just about the same story at DAL. I've had a total of 9 long call days sitting at home (commuter) since I was hired last March. Although, if one lived in base, reserve here would be quite tolerable.

What are the advantages (to the company) of homebasing?

APM145

Homebasing is not there on the line for any airline that I know of, but in their charter divisions we have: ExpressJet.

in cargo we Have: Capital Cargo.

UPS and FedEx have a rather unique travel policy that can provide paid travel at times from a pilots home, but I agree thats pushing it.

Avroman

closest thing is Netjets. but they almost always start and end their week with an airline deadhead anyway so it really doesn't make a big difference usually.

jonnyjetprop

The short answer is because the Teamster carriers tend to be the non scheduled carriers like World. So it's not the union, but the type of operation that drives homebasing. At a major, if you live at your base, then you are if fact homebased. Some choose to commute.

At a non scheduled carrier, there are no hubs. So on some level, you have to fly your crews to and from the plane anyway. No, the only cost differential is if the ticket costs more from each pilot's home than a centralized location. At my company, World, the pilots help defray some of that cost. I pay $125 a month for homebasing. Trust me, it's money well spent. The big push for homebasing happened in 2000, when the ALPA carriers got aggressive about jump seat abuse. ALPA jumpseat policy was that a crewmember should only j/s to and from his base. We had pilots who lived in Texas, were based in IAD and flew trips out of LAX. Guess what, they j/s from home to LAX instead of j/s to the East coast before taking the company sponsered ticket from IAD to LAX. Clearly this was against the rules and our jumpseat agreements were under threat.

While homebasing is a great QOL improvement, it does come at a cost. Since the company is paying the commuting costs, there is a real benefit to having the pilots work long streaches of time. It's not uncommon for a World pilot to work 14 days in a row. Now, we then get our days off in streaches also. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your personal situation at home.

Hope this helps in the discussion.

sailingfun

Homebasing can work great for a airline that does not have a hub and spoke system. If you have major hubs you need the majority of your reserves in base. When bad weather hits they need every pilot and they need them now. I don't really see it happening. It would be a large cost item. The best solution is to try and pick a airline with hubs where you want to live and move to a hub. Commuting is always a quality of life killer. I speak as a pilot who has comutted a good part of my career. If I had to do it over again I would move.

Ski Patrol

I stand corrected.