You'd be stupid not to go to Colgan. Get hired as a Beech 1900 FO and in 3 years make CRJ captain.

 

Your commute gives me hives just thinking about it. You will end up driving, it's your choice whether you want to bother with getting beaten into it by dash 100's, full flights and WX cancellations or just skip that step and the associated debris.

 

Roa is impossible most days, only dashes that are almost always over sold. So no jump seater s, if they can it's going to be filled by a piedmont senior to you. Move if you can to clt

 

I can't speak to CRW, but ROA can be tough. It is slightly easier to get out of there than it is to get back. The flights generally run pretty full and as was said earlier, you will be competing with a lot of mainline commuters.

As was also said, the 100 series Dashes are often weight restricted so the 37 seat plane only has 34 pax seats and the jumpseat won't be available. That is not an issue with the 300's or the CRJ's.

Throw in a hiccup like weather, or, heaven forbid, a cancellation or even an equipment downgrade from a 300 to a 100 and chaos will result. Because of the high load factors the trouble can sometimes cascade for days even for the paying pax, much less the SA's.

Delta through ATL is an option, but only as a last resort because once you get to that point driving is faster and easier. It has been known to happen that the guys stuck in CLT will split the cost of a rental car.

It can be done; I did it off and on for 10 years. It is just not always reliable or easy.

 

Have you considered catching Silver out of BKW to IAD. I know BKW IAD should be easy to make. Not sure how easy IAD CLT would be (I know I avoided CLT when I commuted it was like Dennys seems like a good idea at the time but regret it later when it screws you)

Actually just remembered hearing something about BKW getting a new carrier and that they were going to go CLT I'll see if I can find some info on it. Good thing about BKW is you would most likely be the only commuter.

Found it...hope this helps.

New airline to serve Beckley, bring maintenance operation to airport - Register Herald: News

 

Yeah Silver dropped BKW a few months back, we still go to IAD out of LWB though!

 

Great info. Thanks all

 

Have been thinking about using this option too LWB-IAD. Is that flight ever full, or would I always get a seat? Anything else I should know about that route?

 

IAD-CLT works until something cancels. I try to do it when going to CLT for training events but always keep my PS seat out of DCA until I know I can get out of IAD. Never had a problem, but on those occasions where it looks real iffy early on, I just bite the bullet and trek in to DCA.

~8 RTs on Airways and 3 on United during the week... all on Express carriers.

 

On that note, to get from IAD to DCA:

Take the Washington Flyer bus from IAD to the West Falls Church Metro station. Catch it at the upper level. IIRC it runs every 30 minutes and costs $4 one way for uniformed crew. Then catch the Metro to DCA. You will have to change trains once. Googling the DC Metro will give you the route map.

If you hit everything just right, total time from IAD to DCA is about 40 minutes, but it can take up to an hour or more.

DCA to CLT can be tough also. The second jumpseat on the Airbus saved my bacon more than once.

This is getting complicated, eh? Drive to ROA. If you get out, good. If not, it is about a 2 1/2 hour drive to CLT. If you can't get out of CLT to ROA, go in with the other SA's on a rental car.