Non domicile lines ?
 

Hi all, I'm a rotor wing guy hoping to cross over soon and been reading the forums trying to get a feel for the RJ industry. Anyhow, it seems QoL is most important factor everyone seems to agree on.

So, my question is can you bid a line from a base that is not a domicile ? As in my home airport would be KVPS, is there a way to bid there ?

Thanks.

No, several legacy carriers have combined bases like LAX/ONT, but unless you live in a domicile for your airline you won't be based there.

In a word, no. But some airlines will allow crew trades. That allows you to trade legs with pilots who live at the same airport as you, allowing you and the other guy/gal to "originate" from home, assuming there are two of you and you can bid comparable schedules. I wouldn't count on it working out for you very often.

You are thinking about virtual basing where trips start at your home airport. Many companies have looked at it (jetBlue among them) but no one has actually been able to figure out a way to make it work.

Actually Netjets and Kalitta both do (and I'm pretty sure there are other freighter/ACMI companies that do as well)

I haven't heard of a major or legacy like JetBlue considering that. It would be wonderful for commuters. What obstacles did JetBlue find; too expensive?

I was referring to scheduled passenger carriers because the guy was asking about regional airlines.

Actually it was a while back. The article I read on it said the big issues were expense and sick calls.

When Bob Crandall was president/CEO at AMR/AA, he commissioned a study by the University of Minnesota (IIRC!) looking at this issue. His goal was cost reduction in overnight expenses (hotels and crew per diem).

The study concluded that the way to achieve what he was looking for was a large number of smaller crew bases at out-stations so that crews would go out and return the same day or, at worst, have periodic overnights resulting in two-day trips at worst.

I never did hear how hub-basing would be affected. Anyway, he decided the proposed solution was too expensive to implement.

That's how Colgan operated, and to a lesser extend how Republic/Shuttle still do.