In my opinion, you should still take the Brasilia. A bad commute to a line is better than an easy commute to reserve, at least to me. And barring any substantial changes, you'd be on reserve for a while in Denver.

And hey, when United and Continental merge (and SkyWest and XJT merge), Houston's just right down the road!

 

From what I understand - FAT is junior and probably where I'd be at. How commutable are the lines? It looks like if someone got hired today, they wouldn't be on reserve very long...

What base would you pick if you had to do a commute from DFW? The nice thing is many of the bro bases have one leg commutes from dfw - only problem is the flights are only a couple a day, so I have no idea if loads are light enough for me to be able to commute.

Are the bro schedules still primarily 4 on 2 off? It seems like it'd be pretty tough to get home. Sorry for all the questions, just a bit anxious.

 

Yeah, FAT is junior, and that's probably where you'd be. Looks like for this month there's only five reserve lines for FAT EM2 FOs, which sounds pretty good to me. As far as I can tell, the trips aren't terrible from a commuting standpoint, and some actually look good.

Off the top of my head, I'd say PSP would be your best bet. I think it's the next junior EM2 FO base after FAT, and as long as American's MD80s aren't grounded, there's a couple of DFW-PSP flights per day.

As for scheduling, we have PBS, so depending on your seniority you can have any kind of line you want (if you know what you're doing). I don't know what you'd get bidding last, but you're not necessarily going to be locked on 4 on 2 off.

 

Yeah PSP was one of the more attractive EMB bases to me - not nearly as expensive as say SFO or SAN to live in. I'm thinking seeing as how pay is better, it's only a year seat lock, and I'd be holding a line pretty quickly I may request the EMB. Hmmm.

My other question is this - I will be getting married end of April next year - is it a big deal to get a LOA for something like this? I would hate to just have to quit! I suppose at that time I could maybe bid around it...

How exactly does the PBS work?

 

I'm not sure about the LOA, because I haven't done it. I would think that with nearly a year under your belt, though, you ought to be senior enough to at least get a couple of days off that you need. I don't know about three weeks for a honeymoon or whatever, though. Might be worth asking at your interview.

PBS basically just sorts out what everybody wants. They load in all the trips, crewmembers put their preferences in, and then it executes and tries to give everybody as much of what they want as possible, while attempting to respect seniority. It's not perfect, and a lot of people complain about it, but I'd say I like it overall. It has quite a few options, but it your case, for example, you could ask it for commutable 4-day trips with 4 days off between trips, or whatever you like. You won't necessarily get it, but the system will try.

 

I commute threw DFW all the time on my way to FAT. That is if I can get out of CID to DFW. I take the evening flight from DFW-FAT and the loads are not bad at all. Usually booked to 80-110. I have only seen the flight full once and that was during the AG Expo and all flights to FAT were overbooked. You could always take a flight to LAX and then FAT which I use for my backup plan. All SkyWest flights so there is a good chance you will get on. Go to the Bro if you have a chance and you might start months earlier than if you wait for the jet. FAT would be the best base to choose and PSP a close second. In FAT you will sit reserve the shortest and we have the better lines, that is in my opinion as a commuter here. Good Luck!

 

Awesome. how is the day to day life of commuting into FAT? Crashpad/ transportation to the airport hard to come by?

 

I usually travel to FAT on the day before my trip starts because I have such a long commute. I do 4 day trips, ending on Friday, fly home Friday night, home Sat & Sun, and commute back to work on Mondays. Lot of different varieties on the trips here with some being commutable and most commutable on atleast one side. I commute to/from FAT through DEN, DFW, LAX, PHX, SFO, and LAS....lots of options. I have a crashpad there that is walking distance to/from the airport so I have no car. If you need to go somewhere there is usually someone around that has a car to get a ride.

 

From what I understand (on sapaforums?), PSP would be lousy for a commuter only because of the lack of 3 and 4 day trips...again, not based there, but that's the word...

 

Yes, plus it's mainly all LAX flying with a few pairings that head up into SFO. For the most part their lines suck! FAT has the best flying (feeds LAX, SFO & PDX systems consistently) but it's an outstation (for the most part all CAL bases are outstations) so commutable on both ends is difficult until you get really good to great seniority.

Plus there seems to be an increase in pairings that start or end with a deadhead to or from LAX or SFO. This greatly helps with it comes to commuting.