Rate this commute
 

I’m about a year out from applying to regionals. My wife and I have avoided planting roots to make moving easier when that time comes.

We’re starting to like our current town though. She’s contemplating switching jobs but doesn’t want to if it means having to leave after a year. We’re also debating whether to keep renting even though we could get a mortgage for cheaper than what we pay in rent.

I live 5 minutes from an outstation that has 5-8 flights a day to CLT which is about a 4 hour drive.

If I got based in CLT, I’d have a 30 minute one leg commute on a lucky day. A 4 hour drive on a bad day. Would this be bad enough to justify moving to avoid commuting at all? I’d like to hear from the people who have already been there

I think that is a pretty sweet scenario, to be honest. I used to commute to reserve in CLE for XJT and am very close to commuting DFW to ERW for C5 as a DEC.....(just doing all my due diligence) While the 4 hour drive wouldnt be ideal, having multiple flights a day and a good short route from an outstation is great. If the wife is happy, its a sweet deal. Much better than alot of people have it. Even once I got iah, i still had a 3 hours drive or a two leg commute through DFW......just for IAH.

I think you are golden. Best of luck!

If the out station is small enough that it is serviced by a particular regional and you can get on with that regional that’s even better. If it’s large enough to primary be serviced by larger aircraft that’s still good, just not as good.

It’s serviced by multiple regionals and some mainline action, but PSA is the main player and PSA usually is the overnight aircraft.

If I stay in this town I think I’d try to get on with PSA. With enough seniority get based in CLT and maybe even get lucky enough bidding trips that would have me overnighting in my own town. That would make driving 4 hours worth it

Thanks for the feedback!

Just for input. Currently PSA is a year and a half of reserve to a line in CLT, 11 months for long call. Also these numbers are a snapshot of how it was on that day, times are increasing.

So expect a month or two of two leg commutes to sit reserve in an outstation then 10-12 paying for a crash pad/hotels in CLT.

Move

Picking a good commute is like picking the best pimp. Sure, some of them may not beat you, but It is better not to have one. SO SO SO many more options in base. Put down roots in CLT.

Definitely wouldn't recommend any commute via airplane ever. No matter how short or how many options. I did a 35min flight with 9 flights a day / 4hr drive to base and it was absolutely purely miserable. Live in base. Sit reserve in your living room. Bid locals and 2 day trips for a line vs 4 day trips and stay married.

The issue with CLT is it's so senior. Not only at the regional level but also at mainline AA. I would bid around 75% on the FO list there and I can hold group 2 CA elsewhere. CLT will grow somewhat which will help but keep in mind it used to go to new hires. Not even a hint of that will happen ever again I'd imagine. In other words, not only will you be waiting a while at PSA to get in as an FO, but also as a CA, then line holder, then flow as an FO and will be waiting a long time just to hold short call reserve. Keep in mind all the flows that have come from the WO's that live there, and they are all young too.

I'm not trying to burst your bubble but you might want to rethink your current spot long term if CLT is your goal...

I lived in base for roughly seven years and have commuted eight. It was really nice living in base and I will again sometime but my wife needed a career too so once I got mine she came next. While commuting sucks sometimes other times it can also be easy and nice to unwind on your own for a bit.

A 0:30-1:00 flight with half a dozen daily options on company metal (plus offline options) can almost be easier than driving to work if you come out of a small airport. I used to commute into DCA and there were times after a trip ended I would be home before the FO made it home (but he drove!). Also one nice thing about outstations is typically they have very early flights into the hubs and very late flights out of them. I could be in DCA by 630am and the last flight out was at 1030 pm. And had two different carriers in the same terminal with times offset about :20.

Contrast that now to my 3 hour cross country commute with 6-8 a day, but still always oversold or weather delayed (or canceled) and I am looking up crews to see if they will be legal the next morning and tracking airplanes to see where it's coming from, checking TAFs...yes that kind of commute sucks!

Been commuting to DCA and CLT for about 5 years now. It isn’t that bad at all. CLT has 8 flights /day and DCA had 6 direct plus in a pinch I could hop on Southwest to BWI or UA to IAD.

The CLT flights seem to be mostly full compared to other bases (at least DCA). I’m often on the jumpseat. Sometimes I miss my first flight and have to roll over onto a second flight to make it to work. It’s not a big deal though, usually I make my first flight no problem.

If you have an easy 1 leg commute on company or AA metal I say go for it. It isn’t always as bad as some make it out to be. My family and I have zero interest in living in an airline hub. One of the big “pluses” of this job is being able to live where you want and commute to work.

7 on a 10 scale.

PSA should be a good long term airline pick.

CLT being super senior mainline is likely to change as the various USAir (and Piedmont!) guys retire en masse soon

"Soon"? They have already been retiring at breakneck speed. The bulk of the retirements going on over the past few years is LUS. But CLT has only been further backfilled by senior people moving in.

Well it’s about to go breaknecker

I think a huge portion of the retirements over the next 3-4 years are LUS. Lots of movement in LUS bases.

Are you commuting from Wilmington?


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And CLT is filled with transfers in not new hires or even relatively junior folks. There hasn't even been a single Airbus CA opening there for over a year, maybe two.

Most of the LUS retirements will be done in the next few years, by 2022.

I know it's anecdotal, but I've flown with numerous captains in LGA who commute in from various places who've said "yeah, tired of commuting, getting ready to move the family to Charlotte." I've never heard one say that about any of our other bases.

That is exactly my point, it's the new DFW as far as AA goes. DFW used to be crazy senior even on junior airplanes (ie ~40% of the S80 FOs can hold CA elsewhere and it is by far the junior plane there). That is rapidly changing, even now the difference between Group 4 FO in NYC and Dallas is only 200 numbers.

I'm not saying someone hired in the next few years (or even a decade) won't get it, but the chances are you will be extremely junior there for a very very long time and will probably end up what the guys living in Dallas did - commute to MIA or NYC to upgrade or have some semblance of quality of life as a senior FO there instead of being on short call working every weekend with January vacations.

I don’t understand why people claim that commuting is one of the pluses of the industry. Even in the best of circumstances it will still complicate your life and work. It’s a long way to age 65 and do you really want to live that way for that long?

I dunno, people have different levels of tolerance for things. I don’t mind commuting. It isn’t always easy but I don’t mind it. Gives me time sitting in the airport to make phone calls and answer emails etc that I don’t want to do when I’m home with my family.

I can have the job that I want, and I don't have to trade the home that I want. If I want to live somewhere else, then I still don't have to trade the job. It's a win for me.

Thanks for all the responses everyone.

From what I gather everyone can agree that any commute by airplane is going to make life tough. You’ll spend more time away from home, more money on gas/crash pads and lose the flexibility to accept short notice flights on days off for bonus pay. That being said, if you have the personality to make good use of the travel time and can use that to catch up on phone calls, bills, reading, etc the commute is tolerable.

It def gives me something to think about.

If I were to commute to CLT I’d be flying on PSA a majority of the time. That’s why I mentioned PSA. If the goal was to get based in CLT would it make more sense to try to get on with Piedmont? If they only have bases in CLT and PHL I would think I would have a better chance of ending up in CLT. I guess the trade off would be more time spent driving because PSA pilots would get the jumpseat over me

This won’t work for everyone, but when faced with the decision in 2017, I wanted to go to a AA WO for the back up of having the flow. I listed the crew bases that were common between the regional and mainline. I handed the list to my wife and said “Where do you want to move?”

I’ve been doing flying for awhile. My simple recommendation is to live within a drive commute of your base. I’ve seen folks literally tear their families apart by trying to do a flying commute “for the sake of the family, make things easier on the wife, keep kids close to grandparents, my wife needs help, closer to my wife’s job, etc.”

The issue is once you start commuting by air, it will be a varying sacrifice on your part. It may work now, but will it work years out. If you want to stop, will your spouse then agree to move? I’ve seen spouses refuse to move or want to move often while citing your ability to commute. Even worse, I’ve seen the ability to commute used to allow ex spouses to move with the kids with little recourse because a pilot had commuted in the past.

While the ability to live where you want may seem like a benefit, IMHO it’s just not worth the hassle. There’s plenty of great areas to live within a 1-2 hour drive of a pilot base. Back in the day, the standard recommendation was to move to the largest, junior base. It’s still true now.

Yes a lot of good advice here. What if air service from your home airport changes in the future and you can no longer get to work? Again no one says that you have to live right outside the airport of your domicile. You’ve got a decent radius with options at most places.

CLT = psa, no question