Nope, just didn't want you to be set up for disappointment. :)

That's refreshing.

You sure can my man. Be sure and IM me as soon as the AE results come out and let me know if you got it.

That does bring up an interesting question - since new hires are niether DALS or DALN, does that mean they are not fenced off the fenced fleets? I.E. in theory would a new hire be awarded a 744 spot before a DALS guy would be awarded it? I think the way the SLI award is worded, that is the case.

So bottom line, as always, is: Bid what you want, and want what you bid.

I don't think so only because a new hire is a Delta pilot. Once all FNWA pilots make their choice on the 744, then it goes to the top of the Delta list.

The only way I could see it being an issue is the 777. Does that mean that since the new hires are Delta, do they get a shot at the 777 before FNWA.

Either way, I think you had to be on the list at SLI. Anyone after is dead last.

It's all academic anyway. There is not a glimmer of hope that a new hire will land a 777 spot. They would be lucky to get West of MSP and even that is a snowballs chance.

Heyas,

My $0.02....

Commuting sucks. Commuting to reserve sucks 10X that.

With that said, if I was a newbie, I'd STRONGLY consider moving to base unless it situation really, really prevented it...like an ill parent, or a spouse that has some kind of equity in his/her job (partner in a law or medical practice, for example).

But if you HAVE to commute:

1) Never commute off line unless your primary and secondary plans fall apart. Don't use off line JS as part of your plans.

2) ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS book a jumpseat. Do not depend on open seats in the back, as they can vanish in an instant.

3) Keep the commute to one leg. Problems multiply exponentially with the number of legs involved.

4) Keep the crossings of the time zones to an absolute minimum, if not zero.

Once you're off probation, you can probably be a bit more flexible. But any sort of responsible commuting WILL eat into your quality of life, and commuting to reserve even more so.

BTW, I use Parallels 5.0 on my MacBook Pro, running Windows XP, and it runs all the courseware just fine. It's nice because you don't have to reboot. Well worth the $60.

Nu

My wife is still in the AF at Travis AFB in northern Ca. Got MD-88s in NYC. Commute is gonna SUCK!!

CNI;
try to bid closer on this AE. MSP 88 is a real possibility.

--------
Not only will the commute bite, but NYC commuting costs are high unless you are willing to be stacked like cordwood in a crashpad. MSP would cut those costs at least in half.

Columbia,

As Razor said, Boot Camp is easy and works great, as a matter of fact I am using my MacBook Pro to complete my systems CD now. There are however, a couple of downsides with Boot-camp:

First off you have to purchase a copy of windows if you do not already have a copy.

Second - you must re-boot your computer to switch back and forth. This is not a big deal if you use it for an exclusive purpose, such as DAL work.

I recommend that you go to the DALPA forum and review the computer section. Lots of good information on this topic. There are a couple of programs that run windows as a program vice rebooting your whole system. I think they are called Parallels and Fusion. I opted for the boot-camp setup because I use my MacBook for a lot of Navy crap that needs windows and was not sure if either of those two would work.

Hopefully DAL will come up with stuff that works on MACs.

Hope this helps. :)

Scoop

Understatement of the century. Commuting to NY, especially from the West Coast is going to make you question your choice of career. I commuted from PHX and DEN to NYC for a little over a year and it was horrific. I cannot begin to describe the nastyness. Like someone else mentioned, it's not just the long flight, and the time zones, the cost of being based in NYC (Transportation, crash pad, etc) adds up ridiculously quickly. There is no question about it, you WILL hate everything and everyone. The only thing that kept me going was thinking that someday, things were going to get better (In theory) and they did.
So although this post sounds negative and discouraging, what I'm trying to say is you have to look at it like this:
This sucks, but in the long run, it's going to get better, and this career is definitely worth the commute.