PerpetualFlyer

Also depends on the base. I'm guessing you're in Chicago, Minnie, or Denver? Lots of short legs and low credit trips there. You can choose to not believe me, but that's what I've been getting the past couple months.

kfahmi

How do you guys define good vs. bad trips? Is it the ratio of TAFB divided by credit hours? So for example, a trip with a TAFB of 80 hours with a credit of 16 hours would be bad, whereas a trip with a TAFB of 80 hours with a credit of 30 hours would be good? Or am I dramatically oversimplifying?

I guess there are other factors that go into it...like in December, I'd probably take a lower-credit trip to San Diego as opposed to a higher-credit trip to Calgary...

Anyhow, would just be curious to learn about how you judge the 'quality' of a trip beyond the very simple metric of TAFB/Credit hours.

dodgerk

A "normal" trip would credit about 5 hours per day on average. 4 day =20 hours. We sort of define a long TAFB 4 day trip as anything over 80 hours. I would say for a 4 day the following: 20 hours credit, 80 hours TAFB = average. If you credit more with less TAFB you are on a good trip. A very good 4 day would be 25 or 26 hours credit with 80 hours or less TAFB at Skywest. There are some very bad trips such as 18-20 hours credit for 90 hours TAFB. Does that sound about right to everyone?

rcfd13

You're kind of right in your assumption that there are a lot of ways to define what a good trip is since everyone wants something different. The one general thing that's constant is that a trip that allows you more credit for less time away from base is a better trip. You can have someone senior who holds four 25 hour 4 days per month and someone junior who gets assigned four 16 hour 4 days per month. The senior person could work the same number of days as the junior person yet get paid 36 hours more for doing so. That's a huge amount of money.

A lot of people are commuters and think of a good trip as being a commutable trip. I might for instance bid a bunch lower credit trips in layer 1 that are commutable because a lot of the really high credit trips aren't commutable on both ends. If I can avoid paying for a hotel room, or get home a day earlier bidding lower credit is worth it. People who live in base wouldn't have to deal with that.

Some people also just like to bid or avoid bidding certain overnights. Places like MIA, LGB, LAS, PHX, AUS go more senior than you'd expect even when they're part of really bad trips. I've flown with a few people who have family members in certain overnights so they bid worse trips just to overnight there.

A 'good trip' is different for everyone but in general more pay for less time away from home is what makes a good trip.

junglejet527

Hey all

Just got offered an interview with SKW was curious if LAX or ORD are realistic bases out of training???

Thanks!

rcfd13

There's about a 100% chance you'll hold ORD out of training. LAX is a little hit or miss. It hasn't been unheard of recently for new hires to get it but you may want to plan on not getting it for a few months. It shouldn't take long.

kfahmi

Very interesting, thank you. Makes perfect sense. How do the bids work? Is there simply an open period with a deadline, i.e. by X time on X date, all bids must be in, and then the computer assigns you your trips by seniority?

kfahmi

Wondering if anyone is doing an SFO-ORD commute. Given those are both United hubs, and that weather in both SFO and ORD can lead to all kinds of delays, would you define that as "a commute from h*ll" or is it not so bad?

rcfd13

I commuted SFO to ORD for over a year. If you have specific questions PM me. In general it's an extremely easy commute, but you'll end up in the jumpseat a lot. Flights are usually full but there aren't a lot of jumpseaters. Most of the jumpseaters are either Virgin or other United Express so it's possible for you to have priority over them. In a year of doing the commute I think I only got bumped for the jumpseat maybe 2-3 times total and there's almost a flight per hour so those times weren't a big deal. I never missed a commute.

For some reason it seems like a lot of the United Express jumpseaters stay away from American. I've had times where there were 3 jumpseaters listed for a United flight so I walked over to American and got right on. I can't explain why that is but I always tried to use AA or Virgin for the commute.

kfahmi

Thank you sir, that's very helpful. Much appreciated.