Commute from KBNA
 

I've read a lot of the forums but haven't seen much about Nashville. I think the commute to CLT would be easy but I just wanted to verify. Or would it be better just to drive to TYS? Anybody on here live in the Nashville area and commute?

Thanks for any help!

3 hour known drive vs a gamble on a commute? You always want to control when you go to work and get home it’s always best to drive. Anytime you had jump seats on a highly commuted route you add uncertainty. Heck I work BNA CLT several times and add a de ice and normal delays it’s 1.5 block. Park, clear KCM, board you’re already at 2-3 hours just to commute to CLT.

My limit on driving is about 2 hours. And even then doing that 2x /week and you’re putting a lot of miles and wear/tear on your vehicle. More than 2 hours I’ll fly. But that’s just me. I’ve been commuting my whole time here and it doesn’t scare me. Except when it does.

I'm going to fall on the side of driving to TYS vs flying to CLT, but everyone is going to come at that differently. At the very least, when driving you will always know when your commute is going to leave, but CRR correctly points out there are some hidden costs to that.

If you bid right you can probably find someone to pick up your day one TYS-CLT and last day CLT(or wherever)-TYS leg. It's not too uncommon for that last leg to be a deadhead, either.

There's no reason that I know of not to try both to see which you like better. Personally, I'd much prefer to drive somewhere to sit 5 days of reserve than save an hour on each end flying and not have my own transportation.

Remember that when commuting from Nashv to Knoxv you have to add an additional hour because of the time change.

So if you have a 7am call in Knoxville that means you'll need to leave 4 hours early... 3 hrs driving and 1 hour safety buffer. Leave Nashville at 3am. EXCEPT that the time change would make it 2am to get to Knoxville on time.

Does that issue favor a driving vs. flying commute or just not living in Nashville period.

Commuter clause... give yourself two options and pull the plug if need be.

Thanks guys. Just what I was looking for. I totally forgot about the time change. That might change things. Maybe I can convince my wife to move to Knox instead of Nash when I retire until I can hold a line. Hold time at TYS still about 6 months?

Hard to say. TYS is fairly top-heavy which means lots of flows coming up. FOs are starting to upgrade again so there is more movement than there was over the holidays. From DOH, 8-9 months will probably see someone starting today on a R2 line. I'd put R1 in the 10-12 month range, to be conservative. I expect the times to stay similar to CLT.

I made the BNA-TYS drive 2-3 times per month for about a year. It gets tiring, not because the drive itself, but because the extra planning like others said. If you need to be there for 5am call (checked in at airport by 6am), do you really leave at 1am or do you just go down the night before? But it's really the same either way, if you have to be to CLT for hot at 5am you're not commuting in that morning from anywhere (especially not central time) either, unless our reserve rules get a serious update.

In either situation, if you have 11am call you should be able to get there in the morning. Getting home on the last day becomes the issue. The latest CLT-BNA flight is at 10:40pm and while you can try to finagle Scheduling into releasing you early, it's a coin toss, at best. You could, however, get away with leaving from TYS, by car, as early as 11:45pm, getting back to Nashville at around 2am local time.

It's all so complicated...just live in base :cool: