Poll: Compensation or No Commute?
 

If you had to choose, would you prefer to commute for higher pay, or be based in your hometown for significantly lower compensation?

Thanks!

It comes down to what your expense to income ratio is. An FO at the lowest paying regional could be doing better financially than a captain. Scenario...

The FO is single and has little or no debt. He lives in base and bids for maximum days off. It's easy for him to live comfortably off his pay. He plans to bypass the junior upgrade so that he can upgrade in his current base and avoid the commute.

The CA has a wife and two young kids. They both have student loan debt, credit cards, a mortgage, and car loans. His wife makes the same as he does, but they have to be careful with monthly expenditures. He could be living in base but he now commutes to the junior captain base.

This is a different job without having to worry about commuting. If your financial situation allows for it, chase QOL and live in base.

Other variables to consider.
1. How safe is the base at that airline?
2. New hires concentrate on payrates, after the first six months or so you pay attention to work rules. Crappy work rules based at home may be worse than great rules with an easy commute.

Depends on your personnel circumstances.

Same question as work part-time at the starbucks around the corner or commute to the North Slope oil fields for two-week shifts, 12-hour days, and huge bank?

Live where you want and be home based.

Too many factors to boil it down to just commute vs compensation. Living in base I pick up a ton of critical turns during the day while my girlfriend is at work, something I definitely couldn’t do if I had to commute.

Depends, there’s two ways of looking at this. You can commute for higher pay but crash pads and commuting expenses will eat into that.

Picking trips on your days off will be tougher as you might have to spend some of your off days commuting unless you manage to get commutable trips.

Where as living in base will not be subjected to commuting expenses and if you need to make extra money, it is easier to pick up on your days off for premium pay.


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Pick a place you don’t have to commute. Even with lower pay, you might actually make more by picking up premium trips on your day off. As a commuter, I never pick anything up.

I chose to commute when I did because the airline I commuted to paid more and offered a commuter package. I made more money than my friends who stayed local (and also advanced quicker). While both options offered the same amount of days off, I had more money to spend on those days. I also bid home-layovers, so I was home just as much.

If you can live comfortably on local salary then stay local. But if your option B, makes commuting easy, pays more, has quicker movement, and flys to your city, then take option B.

I mean if you don't have kids then just pick your favorite Endeavor base and move there. Going pretty much anywhere else is going to cost you tens of thousands in lost income.

Try something new somewhere new.