commuting & duty time
 

If I am commuting to my base, the time it takes me to get there has no impact on that days duty time....is that correct? Now, if I am being deadheaded to a base that is not mine to fly, that gets added in to my duty time...is that correct? I'm asking this because my company has requested that I fly a trip out of a base that is not mine, and they have offered to deadhead me there as long as I fly in the night before. They are putting me up in a hotel and everything, but the show time the next day is around 5pm. As a commuter, I would rather stay at home with my family and jumpseat the day of the trip rather than get there the night before a 5pm show. Crew scheduling told me they could not deadhead me in the day of because my last flight gets in so late I would be over my duty time. So, if I don't deadhead and just jumpseat the day of, is it true that will in no way impact my duty time? Sorry for the paragraph, thanks for the help.

Deadhead is duty,
Jumpseat is not.

Beech,

The way that usually works is "commuting" is on your own time and does not count in any way towards duty time. "Deadheading" is a scheduled activity and does count. Thats why your company schedulers have built in the rest period after your "deadhead". The one caution I would heed is... if your company "schedules" you for a "deadhead" the day before and you choose to jumpseat the day of... if you dont get on that jumpseat for whatever reason and miss the trip you will probably find yourself exlaining this to the chief pilots office.

Check your companys commuter cluse. Some companys you dont have to worry about commuting if you at least try on (list) two flights before. They cant fire ya, and even some times they will Positive Space fly you to work if they really need you. I know comair does this.

In Beech's post it states he is "being deadheaded to a base other than his own"... I dont think that qualifies as "commuting"...

Deadhead and make a few bucks!

Technically that would be jumpseat abuse. If you are scheduled to fly a trip out of base, the company is required to get you to that base. If you jumpseat to a different base to fly an assigned trip instead of the company providied deadhead, you could be taking the jumpseat away from another pilot who needs it.

I realize it would mean another night at home, but it's still abuse.

i dont believe in that taking a jumpseat away from another pilot part. thats like saying you should live where youre based so you dont take potential jumpseats away from commuters. its all calculated risk. that extra night at home is a right, not a privelege.

we can probably agree to disagree on this, but i wouldnt criticize someone for that because we can also take this jumpseat discussion one step further... based on that logic you probably think its wrong to jumpseat for personal travel right?

In no way is this abusing the jumpseat. Let me give you an example at my company.

We have a base in ORF. Because it's more or less an outstation base, there are trips that start with a deadhead to CLT or PHL quite often. What a lot of people do, since they are commuters, is jumpseat to CLT or PHL to start their trip instead of jumpseating to ORF the night before to catch the DH to CLT or PHL on the next morning. Make sense?

That's essentially what this guy is asking. In absolutely no way would this be abusing the jumpseat. It's called commuting, and it's the smart way to do it if you are a commuter.