word302

Meh. Been at my shop less than 2 years. Haven't worked Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Years yet.

Skyler02

$37 for a hotel around IAD? Not that I found. Maybe you're talking about another base?

$58/night at the Wingate (when they have crew room rates available) is the cheapest I found, by far. Check Hotels.com, Priceline, etc to get a realistic idea of what is available, and remember the 90 minute call out to get to your gate. It takes a while for the employee shuttle or hotel shuttle and getting to your gate, so just plan accordingly. If you try to go further from DC to find a less expensive hotel, remember to factor DC traffic into your 90 minutes.

Plan to spend the majority of your nights on reserve back in IAD. At least in my experience, that's the case. I average 2-4 nights per month in a company paid hotel away from base. I average 30 flight hours/month. And I am 'Call me first'. YMMV

Hope this is helpful. Good luck.

Rob12345

I'm a Dallas FO, glad I have the CrashPad, some 6 days, I flew 0 and had ready some.

Got a lot of day trip turns without overnights, I would be back in base not knowing when I'd fly again.

Slaveaway

I've had a few trips with her too. Flight attendants should not be allowed to go through kcm.

Xdashdriver

I think you're a little confused. The article doesn't say anything about Mexico....only NEW Mexico. She was arrested in Texas so she has to be extradited to NEW Mexico (where supposedly the alleged crime took place) to face charges. Extradition is a legal process to transport you across jurisdictional borders to face charges where the crime was committed. I think you're thinking of deportation which is what happens if you are in the U.S. illegally. She is not being deported (pretty sure she's a U.S. Citizen), just extradited to New Mexico. Largely a formality between U.S. states, but necessary nonetheless.

Bumbaclot

I was informed that she was running for FA Union Council President as well. Absolutely disturbing.

Bumbaclot

Why are you staying at Mesa? Eh...probably better I don't ask anymore. Especially after I find out i've been flying with wanted fugitives in the back.

Slaveaway

I wonder what customers think when they see some of the trash flight attendants at Mesa.

MagPBS

I deal with this question a lot on the base visits and just with people I fly with. And every one of them, once I explain the process, understands a whole lot more that it's not some grand conspiracy.

First, remember that when this window was negotiated that we had somewhere close to a dozen bases and that everyone (including the planners) was brand new to the software. The window was set that long to deal with the scale of bases and the learning curve.

Nowadays the learning curve is mostly gone (more on that below) and we're down to 4 bases. This is why you generally get your stuff on the 21st.

It’s the back end that most people don't realize. There's more than just the pilot contract to deal with here. PBS closes on the 17th at noon. At that point a last update of data gets loaded and final roster checks are completed. When all that's said and done some initial runs are started. Run lengths vary from just a few minutes to a few hours based on pairing quality and base size.

Flight attendant bidding closes at 10a on the 18th. Being paper bids the results have to be posted later that day and every single FA needs to be manually integrated along with having their vacation and training put onto schedules with the resulting trips removed and dealt with. As a result there is basically 0 PBS work done by the company from the 18th-about mid day on the 19th.

Once Captain runs are done, those runs have to be sent over to the training department to have IOE pulled. We have to wait for that data to come back before FO runs can be started.

When all the runs are done the data has to be loaded into CrewTrac and Flica and error checked.

If one were to condense down ACTUAL work time the average time spend on a single seat (all bases) is about a day to a day and a half. But there's a lot of down time were we wait for various other events that result in calendar days being much longer.

Keep in mind for years Mesa has had 1 full time planner (and at some points 0 full time planners) to do this work. As a result priorities had to be assigned to items that were contractually due first (i.e. FA line awards and integration). As of last month the company has hired 2 additional planners bring the total up to 3. Long term this will help out greatly on all things that get handled by the planning department. However it's a steep learning curve on all the software.

I'm actually out in PHX right now working with the new planners on PBS. As far as number of runs, I would say I average about 6-8 runs per base/seat a month. Some more some less depending on how well it works.

TLDR: No it doesn't need until the 23rd. No it can't be done in 24 hours.

MagPBS

Really? They go through the same background check you do and quite frankly are MORE LIKELY to deal with the bad people then you are. One bad FA does not mean all FA's are bad. If that's the case, we can start digging up all the bad pilot stories (both at Mesa and other airlines) to make the point that all pilots are bad.

Shall we discuss how many pilots attempt to bring illegal things through KCM? Your overreaching on your high pedestal there and should look at your profession in the mirror before claiming your co-workers are evil incarnate.