How crash pads work?
 

How much do you guys usually pay for crash pads per month? How many people would be there at the same time and how many people are actually renting the crash pad? Also how far from the airport do you prefer to stay? (Within walking distance?) thanks everyone!

I've seen crashpads on both coasts. My EWR crashpad was 275ish if I remember correctly. I'm in LA now and have seen pads cost as much as 400ish a month!! So it really varies on the base.


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I pay $175 a month for a crashpad. It is about 4 miles from the airport but everyone who stays here has a car.

It's a 2 bedroom and has a total of 6 of us (including the owner). Sometimes it's just me here, and sometimes there can be 4 of us. Just depends on the day.

The only airport that I know of where you can walk to work is MDW. Every where else will require a car or public transportation. Pricing will vary immensely by geographic location, demand and comfort level. Let us know where you are based and the collective should be able to give you some information.

I recently left a crash pad in DTW. It was a town house 10-15 minutes from the airport via Uber/Lyft. No public transportation available there. Cab would have probably been twice as expensive. Master bedroom had 4 beds at 170/ month. Only 3 other beds in the house so I was there by myself a majority of the time on reserve. Everyone else had a car and drove in.

Now I'm LAS based. One guy has a bunch of town homes 5 min bus ride ($2 each way) from the airport. Has a wide range of options from 170-400 depending on how much you want to yourself. He also does nighty room rentals for 35.

Shop hotels too. Would $35 per night which includes transportation be a good deal? Depends on location and how many nights you will stay obviously but shop around.

My crashpad in PHL is $250/mo. It's a 5 minute walk from the employee parking lot. There are 16 beds in there. There is usually a vacancy or two. At any given time there are usually 2-3 people there. I've had the place to myself several times and a few times there's been 5-6 people there.

You can easily walk from most around LGA within 10 min, just across Grand central pkwy bridge.

Paid 230 a month when i had one in PHL, the septra bus literally stopped in front of the place, I guess you could call it a house, was connected to other houses, had a cold bed, you want s cold bed, warm beds mean someone else has been sharing it. Cold means it yours, find a place if you can that has only a few people, under 10, the ace isn't packed and you're not fighting for a shower at 4am, proximity to airport also is key, taking a cab everyday can add up, public transport for the win!

$275 Kew Gardens. Between LGA and JFK.
$8 shuttles every 30 minutes to either airport. Or $11 Qcab.
Usually 1 other person here in mine.
I could get closer to LGA but this is a nice area with a lot of restaurants and the subway.

I had a crashpad in STL for $175 per month. It was a 20 minute walk to the airport. There were 4 bedrooms, so up to 8 people could rent at once, but rarely was it that full. Some nights I'd be the only one there, some nights everyone would be around.

Crashpads very...some only hold a few pilots, some are a mix of pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and the number of people very obviously.

When I was based in Newark, I didn't really do any research and just picked a crashpad...didn't know what I was signing up for until I showed up. I was in a crashpad that had 40 bunk beds in a two story house. It was always one big party- young flight attendants and pilots that would party every night until 2am..I could only stomach it for a month.

If you're new to the profession my biggest advice is to do research and not do what I did lol. Second advice, move to base and find a few guys to get an apartment and just split the cost. Your life will be much better!

DTW is big on hotel crashpads. There was one at the Clarion for less than $100 a month. It had 25 guys for ten beds in a suite. I think it was five bunk beds. I stayed at the Comfort and Americas Best for around $180 a month. 2 full size beds for 6 people and all the terrible soap you can handle. 3 people in a room? 2 people are sharing a bed. But both had breakfast and a shuttle to the airport. Get done at the end of the day? Go walk to Wheat and Rye and have a giant sandwich with a 30 minute wait for a beer.

On my 5th base 5th crashpad now, if you can help it don't get one with flight attendants, for gods sake I had no idea until it was too late. They can be just oblivious to what should be common sense, no other way to describe it.

I think I can sum up crashpad life with two pearls of wisdom "You get what you pay for" and "Be cautious of your bedfellows". That last one refers to your padmates. The ideal is a group of pilots all about your age range. Worst case is a bunch of new-hire, bubbly, crazy fun, oblivious flight attendants. You know how an 18 year-old girl might be fun to date but you would never want to marry her? Same idea.

Last crashpad I had was at ORD. There are a bunch around the Cumberland stop and Harlem stop on the CTA blue line. Both are very easy to get to or from the airport on the "L" at any time of the day or night; $2.25 (w/ ORD employee discount) and about a 5-7 minute ride each way. The going rate seemed to be around $175-$225. I stayed off Cumberland in a place with 12 bunks and this was my experience:

Pros: Cumberland is probably the better option if you're on reserve for a while. There are more restaurants, bars, an LA Fitness gym, a grocery store and a large park all an easy walk from the main area of apartment buildings. Plus the "L" is close if you want to go anywhere in the city.

Cons: Most of the buildings are older and smaller. Creaky floors, suspect heating and cooling, etc. I was in a two-bedroom place with 12 bunks and a small, out-dated bathroom. Sucked after burrito night or when a few of you had early AM shows.

As far as occupancy, picture a bell curve. On one end you have the few days where it's just you for days at a time. On the opposite end you have the days when the weather sucked and everyone missed their commute/came in early and 9-10 of you are stuck at the pad. And in the middle you have the majority of days where there might be 3-4 of you around which is enough to keep you sane but not too many that it's crowded.

Don't commute, even if your wife is the head doctor at your remote town or the free basement at your moms house in Podunk KY is cheaper than renting in base.

Get together with your wife, kids, pet gold fish or whoever cares about you in life and explain to them that you are all moving. Otherwise you will never see them or they will leave you. 11 to 12 days off, plus reserve, plus days needed to commute back and forth, you do do the math.

The guys that I hear doing these crazy commutes, either they don't want to be home or they have no life. The only way I would commute again is if I was at a major with 16 days off. Less than a 1 hour flight, and there was a flight every hour.

Yes. Full disclosure: After a year of commuting to reserve, I moved to base. Best move I ever made.

And then they closed the base.

Reginals close their major bases once in a decade, if at all. Now don't move to a outstation base that has 20 crews. That's probably going to close.

Envoy, and I think one or two others (PDT and Commutair maybe) have all but eliminated crash pads. Envoy gives hotels on any trip that isn't commutable at either end; up to 4 hotels a month other times; a hotel anytime you misconnect and end up in base overnight, and at the front and back of reserve blocks. Hotels in DFW or ORD are $50 and can be had for less if needed.

End result, most do not require crashpads at all. It's a great QOL enhancement and puts $1,750-2,500 a year back into your pocket.

This must be a hell if a decade then. XJT shut down IAD and DEN. EGL just shut down NY and MIA.

It isn't that bad as long as you don't live in some podunk outstation. I have a 20 min drive and a 45-1:00 flight to work to get into CLT. As long as I can list for 2 flights that would get me in base before my duty period begins, then I am covered by my companies commuter clause. Lots of flights for me and I don't live in a hub or anything. Read the contract of the airline you want to fly for and check the amount of flights to get to and from work. That will let you know how difficult (or easy) your commute may be.

XJT is also out of MCI.

Yeah, but he mentioned major hub cities and nobody has MCI as a hub

All the feels suddenly came back!

RIP Vanguard :(:(

http://www.stanwing.com/wings/v/Vant...20Type%20I.JPG

To be fair, IAD, DEN and MCI were never huge bases for XJT in the overall scheme of the network. CLE was, is and will always will be suspect for viability yet always manages to cling to life. But for the near-term IAH, ORD and EWR are all safe bets on the ERJ side and ATL and DTW are pretty safe bets on the CRJ side. DFW is not one I would jump feet first into just yet. Unless both them feet got cowboy boots on em, then YEEEEHAWWWW!:D

Speaking of Mci, does anybody commute out of there? How is it and what bases seem to be the easiest or most difficult to commute to?

What are the best ways to find crashpads? I've looked at 411crashpad but are there better ways to find them?

Know a guy who knows a guy... Do you already have a job? Ask people who work there where they stay. If you don't already have a job, I'd recommend Envoy or Piedmont and skip the whole crashpad nonsense. Crashpads suuuuck.

Then move again. Still better than commuting. Eagle was based in ny and mia since the begging of time. Also exjet had small ops in den and iAd.

Delete.........

Yea but it an absolute dump! I'd rather sleep in the airport than use this pLace.

I'm about to...I'll be back and forth to training at MSP in Oct. (positive space) and then commuting (at least for a while) to whatever base I get (Endeavor new hire, so MSP, DTW, LGA, or JFK). MSP looks pretty easy from what I've seen so far. About. :50 to 1:00 and I think 5 flights a day.

I see, congrats on the new job and good luck. Any updates down the road on the commuting would be much appreciated.

Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes.

Are there any cheap hotels around MSP? I plan on commuting from MCI and don't want to live the crash pad life.

Sorry to resurrect a three year old thread, but I have a question about crash pads. If you are going to be using it fairly often, like a newbie FO on reserve, I'm assuming you leave some stuff there that you don't mind if it walks away. Maybe uniform parts or toiletries? Condiments? Or does everybody take all their stuff to and fro each time?

Get a better crashpad....
several of the better ones you have your own bed, and storage.

I saw some nice ones on crashpads411 but didn't think about storage. Good call.

Often I’ve seen a large Rubbermaid style covered bin assigned to each customer, and shelves for storing them.