So, a trip or two ago my CA said the CO had approached the MEC about a year ago to discuss possibly adding 'satellite' pilot bases. He told me the MEC rejected the idea outright as it would not properly "honor seniority". This CA seemed pretty well connected with ALPA and accurately described how my local council would vote on the TA along with details of its final provisions (spoiler - he feared they would vote against it). Has anyone else heard this?

I imagine a 'satellite' base would not have a CPO or other support, but would simply be a larger United destination such as SEA/MIA/MCO/LAS where a number of narrowbody trips could originate/terminate throughout the month (widebody N/A). I'd still be "based" at one of our bases and report to the Chief Pilot there. I imagine most trips would be back and forth to hubs as well (instead of say to HNL or CUN). As a lineholder I'd expect to still commute to base for at least some of my trips. Considering this CA is a SEA commuter nowadays, I'd think it would honor his seniority quite a bit if he didn't have to commute as much. I'm a commuter and would probably stay on narrowbodies for the rest of my career if I could minimize commuting. I really don't buy the "doesn't honor seniority" line. What do people think of the possibility? If enough folks chime in agreement, I'd be inclined to start rattling cages with my local council.

What about reserves? Someone else has to commute to Orlando to sit reserve just so you don't have to commute?

There is no way to staff reserves at outstations. If the base is strong enough to stand alone with its route structure, revenue, and load factors then it will be strong enough to be staffed up with line pilots and reserves.

Johnathan Orinstein loves outstations, but PBS doesn't love it.

I think Orlando makes sense for a base as a stand alone base. It's a huge MX facility with tons of flights. It could take more flights easily, just need more gates.

It happens at the regionals with minimum staffing, minimum parts, minimum everything really. I don't see how some larger areas that have frequent flights, several commuters, and most likely several maintenance and parts support could handle a small satellite base. LAS, SEA, MCO, are 3 off the top of my head.

I don't really think traditional reserve staffing would be physically necessary at 'satellite bases'. Personally, I'd happily drop a trip "in base" on short notice to pick up a trip from home/satellite (esp if they offered premium pay!) and would indicate as much on my bid if PBS were capable of processing it. Also, a pilot sitting in PHX can darn near cover short call at DEN/SFO/LAX... so on the flip side in a pinch a DH reserve could be flown into PHX to cover an opening (and this already happens when folks get sick or time out). Sitting reserve at home can be a great deal, I imagine we'd have plenty of commuters who would volunteer for it if it came to pass (well, I would at least). Another CA I flew recently told me that there are 300+ UAL pilots who commute from PHX.

So long as there are fewer lines from satellites than there are commuters living there, I don't see reserve as being much of an issue. I certainly wouldn't envision anyone commuting to reserve at a satellite.

I was specifically told by a union rep that it abrogates seniority. For example, if you moved to base and you are #1 in base, and they build a bunch of 1 day trips to MCO and you like them, but then they rebuild the trips to be 1 day trips OUT of MCO, so some junior pilot who lives in MCO gets to "steal" that flying "out of seniority". So they want to protect "their" bases and not let sub-bases happen, even though the company has figured out they can build more efficient trips. So if you live in BOS and dream of doing 1 day IAH turns, it's not going to happen because ALPA won't allow it.

That makes complete sense, in that it makes no sense. And I believe it.

Yeah, about what I'd gathered. I'm guessing there are a lot of senior UAL commuters out there whose bases have closed who would throw the BS flag at ALPA on this (SEA? MIA?). Seniority has its privileges, but that is pretty rich. If the senior guy wants those MCO trips so badly, he can commute there from base. Still looking for more feedback. Any other commuters gritting their teeth?

This idea was tried on the west coast with the UAL Shuttle, PDX was a satellite base for a while. As stated, reserves were the problem. A SEA reserve, once in a while had to be called out to PDX. I honestly think the problems could have been worked out, but the company wasn't having any of that at the time. Pretty sure ALPA is not interested in trying it again.

As an aside, AA is going through this exact scenario right now. Unfortunately, management is not living up to the implementation of their agreement with APA. SFO was recreated as a satellite, and now AA has announced it's closing again. To the disappointment of APA--and against the agreement with AA. It has been a disaster. Not that it would happen here, but their managerial philosophy right now is adversarial. We don't have any experience with that...

Good info Dave, I'll have to check out the AA threads. Without knowing what our management had in mind this time around, who knows how it might have worked? Yeah, depending on implementation reserves could still be the sticky wicket. Like I said above, I figured a realistic plan would be limited to narrowbodies and still require me to commute at least part of the time. I have a pretty easy commute, but boy would it be an improvement in QOL if something workable was implemented. I imagine it would also help us hang on to junior pilots living in competitors bases who might bolt for QOL. I would be very interested to find out the outlines of what the CO had in mind. If anyone has gouge or heard additional rumors, I'm all ears.