Looking for advice since XJT is where I plan on heading. Where you live in WA, where you are based, and who you fly to get to base.

Also, cost of crashpads, etc

I am hoping for LAX or ONT due to the frequency of flights coming out of SEA.

Thanks in advance.

 

I commute from DAL so I'm not totally up to speed on WA. But I know when we only had COEX bases (IAH, EWR, CLE) a lot of SEA commuters were based in EWR. It sounds crazy to me, too. But we have a JS agreement with EVA (I think we are the only ones with an agreement) that was an almost guaranteed ride home. Now that we have the LAX and ONT bases, I'd think they be fairly easy.

 

SEA to EWR?!?! That is seriously one of the worst commutes I have heard of in the Regional world. Reserves must have sucked.

 

UPS has a flight during the week that leaves ONT at 2am for BFI. Leaves BFI at 830pm for ONT. 4 jumpseats and it's rarely full. Only operates Tuesday morning through Friday night.

 

Anyone ever missed a commuting flight? What happens if that occurrs? This whole commuting this scares the hell out of me. The last thing I want is to call OPS and say I missed my flight because there weren't any jumpseats available. I suppose that is why sitting reserves and living at base with a 2 hour call out is so coveted.

 

As you're probably aware, you don't want to push the envelope while on 1st year probation. BUT, with that said, we have a commuter policy that is pretty solid. You have to have a minimum of 2 flights that get you to your base at least 30 min. prior to your show time. The flights have to have seats (including JS) available 24 hrs prior. If for some reason (i.e. MX or WX) you don't get there you are covered. Now if you fall back on the policy a bunch of times, you may have some 'splainin' to do.

Don't let commuting get to you - it make your life miserable. I've done for 7 years and I wouldn't change a thing - albeit, it's a short commute with high frequency.

 

Wait a second...you're saying that each flight (no matter who the carrier is) has to have at least 2 seats open for commuters?

Is there a place you go to see what flights are available to Jumpseat on?

 

No, it means that there has to be 2 flights to get you to work at least 30 mins prior to show that have seats available 24 hours in advance of the commutes go time. The jumpseat counts as a seat. Now, this can be a bit of gray area. If you are commuting in the CAL system and look at employee res and see a guy listed for BOTH the JS as well as a seat in the back, and can more than likely hold the back seat, does that mean the JS is booked? Like I said, gray area.

Some guys will look at the employee res site the night before they commute, the seats available, and PRINT out the page showing that there were seats open. That way, if there was a cancellation or something and the seats evaporated, he has proof they were open inside the 24 hour window. The biggest thing about the commuter clause is this, READ it, UNDERSTAND it, and make sure your BASES ARE COVERED in the event you have to use it.

If you are commuting on DAL, you can go to DAL's website and see open seats, or use the FTWeb when you get hired to look at loads. For branded, you can probably do the same. Don't know, I don't fly on that side. For a generic page that show flights between city pairs, use passrider.com. Bear in mind, SouthWest does not show up on there.

And to answer you original question, yes. There are a lot of guys that commute from WA. I heard that SEA-IAH could be tough, as well as long. I heard that SEA-LAX is not too bad.

Crashpads in LAX, can be expensive as well as hard to find, relatively speaking.

 

I've done roundtrip LAX-SEA a bunch of times this summer and the flights were surprisingly full and I did not make my 1st choice on more than one occassion. The good thing is that with the high frequency, a bit of planning on your part can avoid most headaches. Once I had to use WN and change in OAK, but that's still not horrible. Check the loads and have 2 backups and you should be fine.

It's been said already, but I'll say it again- commuting to reserve sux.

 

Is it all that uncommon then, if your show time is say 0600, to leave the night prior? I looked as passrider, there are a bunch of direct flights to LA. Not to worried, except EWR would still suck.