Long time lurker...

Just wondering who commuts, and to what airline?
If so, could I get an idea of your opinion of commuting to your airline?

 

Oh boy, can't wait to see where this thread goes.

Everyone is going to have a different opinion. I can speak to commuting as a guy in my early 20s with no wife and kids. I'm commuting to LGA from MSP and so far don't have a huge amounts of complaints. While on reserve I have all of NYC to explore, so its kind of let me live in two cities at once which is neat. The bad side: sometimes you lose a day off at the beginning or end of a trip because you have position yourself the day before, paying for a crashpad, having to pack for up to six days on the road. Now if I have approximately 10% more real commitments (kids etc.) then certain parts of this would be harder. Someone will indefinitely reply shortly saying commuting is about parallel to suicide and you should never do it. It is a matter of perspective and life circumstance.

At Endeavor we just need to give ourselves two options to get us to base before our show time. Call if you miss the first one and crew scheduling will decide if they want to positive space you on the next one. Multiple offenses of missing two result in some kind of mediation board. Never seen that actually happen though.

If you're going to commute, be smart about it. Doing Delta hub-Delta hub commutes is generally an awful idea. MSP-DTW and MSP-ATL are both nightmarish for example.

 

Commuting sucks. End of story.
Thread dismissed.

 

For the regionals commuting is highly not recommended. It will literally destroy your life unless you live for nothing else other than the airline. It may be somewhat more worth it at an LCC or major.

 

If your married and don't want to sell your house or pull your kids out of school find a 1 leg commute with a short rsv time.

If your not married, or don't have kids or a mortgage then move.

Find a commute that will let you:
Commute on your own metal
Commute on your own airline brand
Has 5+ flights a day
Has service to the next closest airport
Is 2 hours or less gate to gate.
Will let you get to the most junior base for upgrading.
Has overnights in your town, so you can go home during a trip.
Is not competitive with other commuters.

 

You commute on whatever airline gets you home. Everyone's commute is different. And as someone said earlier, commuting sucks.

 

The problem with answering this question is that everyone's situation is going to be different.

There are too many variables (city pairs, location of base, family situation, etc) to really be able to gauge what your experience will be like based on someone else's.

I had a 1-leg commute from a medium-sized city to my base in a large city. There were enough flights that I never had a problem getting to work or home (although I had many commutes in the night before or commutes home the morning after my reserve period).

My wife and kids were used to me being gone a lot from my time in the military. I used the time sitting reserve to be out exploring the city I was based in and doing recreational activities. I found a convenient crashpad, and the base was close enough to where I lived (300 miles) that I drove my car out and left it at my base.

Although I certainly wouldn't want to do it forever, I tried to enjoy the time I spent on reserve at a regional.

 

Thanks for the info, Much appreciated!

 

It sucks. I commute from DEN to MSP for reserve and I cannot wait until I can be based in DEN. There are generally 20 flights a day and reserve forces me to commute in the night before. Sometimes my schedule is five days on, two days off which makes it even more terrible. I try and make the best of it. I explore, I volunteer there, I do whatever I can. But, it still sucks and is extremely hard on the family.

 

Go get a job at Atlas, Flexjet or any other company that home bases or move to base. End of story.