newpilot

Has anyone done this? how extressing could this be?

thanks.

dojetdriver

How far west to east? Depends on the service between home and work, the type of line you can hold, show and release times, ect.

TheGreatChecko

Extressing? I don't know.

Stressful, maybe.

Tiring, yes.

If your schedule allows it, it might be doable. But the thing is that unless loads are looking good the day you want to commute, you are going to want to give yourself extra time and possibly a day. On a 4 on 3 off schedule, that extra day might eat up a bunch of your time off.

Also, the schedule might not be realistically commutable, you might have to be on too early to fly that day and get off too late to make it out on the last flight, which would leave you flying on your days off, which will become unfun very fast.

I've done coast to coast once or twice to visit the parents and it can become a very long day pretty quickly if you have to connect or your ideal flight (read: nonstop) is full. This is especially true going eastbound. There is no better way to eat up daylight and time than flying eastbound. Its surprising how quickly your options can dry up when the morning flights are full and you don't get on.

Example, SEA-MSP-ICT. Departed at 730AM PST arrived at 430pm CST. Even with the time change, its still a long day and you are dead tired when you get home.

Checko

Koolaidman

Depends on the airline and how soon you can get a good line. Probably not a bad idea for a company that is growing and has good quality of life, but I wouldn't do it for a "lesser" regional.

rickair7777

I did PHL - SOCAL for a while. There were three daily non-stop airbuses (2 jumpseats) plus a couple of 2-leg connections on another airline. I had non-rev status on both of the airlines.

I think I only had to use my back-up flight a couple times, but the buses were usually full, so I spent a LOT of time in the jumpseat (usually with a second jumpseater too).

I would say it is doable if you have company non-stops (preferably buses, that 2nd JS saved the day on many occasions). I would do it again if I had to start at the junior base of a good airline, but only if there were western bases that I could get into eventually. I would not commit myself to a lifetime of transcon commutting. My real problem is I don't like spending 6-8 hours in the back or in a JS.

ExDeltaPilot

I did it for about 5 months as a lineholder at Delta - Las Vegas-Orlando - double commute through Atlanta. I really hung it out there and did same day commutes for 5:00 PM show times in Orlando - never missed a report but always felt like I was on a short string. Not highly recommmended.

flyfresno

I reccomend the red eyes to get back east from the west coast. I did FAT-LGA for a month and the red eyes into JFK were always my best bet (a day early of course). I would always have to fly to a larger airport like LAS to pick them up, but if you live in a city that has them already, they can be really nice. I didn't feel like I was wasting any time because I would have been sleeping during that time anyway. I still go back to FAT a lot, and I always take a red-eye back east. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best way to go.