Exactly, most early morning shows at my airline are around 5am, which means you're waking up at 1:30am to start your drive. A lot of my days are 10-13 hours long, if not longer. That means some days I'm on the go for nearly 20 hours. My airline loves to throw in a deadhead at the end of a long day. It's not too bad if you're on a multi-day trip but if you're getting a lot of day trips you can see why that would suck. Still, driving is better than a flying commute.

Expense wise, the mileage is what adds up. I've done a 1-2 hour commute in traffic (Seattle area). That's not too expensive because the miles are low. But a 350 mile round trip (3 hour) commute starts going through gas, tires, oil, etc. faster than you would expect. Before committing to it I would sit down and really crunch the numbers so you know what to expect.

You will most likely spend less time driving 3.5 hours than flying a 2 leg commute.

It’s a 1:50 - 2 hr flight for me, with 9 -13 flights a day on 5 different airlines. (depending on the time of year). I also have 2-3 flights a day on my own airline. Being able to reserve the Jumpseat a few days early makes a big difference. Commuting is horrible, but I refuse to move myself or family to any of our bases, since I don’t want to live in any of those cities. I don’t think there’s such thing as a good commute, just some are better than others.

I’m in one of the odd situations where commuting works out very well. I live in a city with direct hourly shuttle service to my base on 2-3 different airlines. My airline has a commuter policy that protects me as long as I have two options that get me to work and gives me positive space on the second attempt. In the event weather/delays I’m a 4ish hour drive from base. All that combined with the occasional trip that ends in a deadhead (which you can swap for a direct flight home/get released and commute on your own direct) and it’s a very good QOL for a lineholder. I acknowledge that such an arrangement is rare but “good commutes” like this might exist in some city pairs.

It sucks. Don’t do it. It has literally killed any desire to leisurely nonrev


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