Please explain your retro payout
 

I find this highly situationally dependent. It really depends on your base and where you live. I strictly fly PM's for this very reason (amongst others). With some tweaking of my schedule using ELITT to find trips that fit my commute, on several occasions I have gone multiple consecutive months without spending a night in base. I do agree however, that it would be nice if more lines were constructed with commuters in mind. Maybe 50% of them to include AMs? Then again, this could potentially dilute the efficiency of said lines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am also able to commute the vast majority of my trips but I think that is more a function of where I live and preferring PM trips than anything else. Houston tends to have some PMs that get back pretty early and has a huge 10-10:30 push to repo planes so that they can catch the recoveries from the west coast. That results in a lot of commutable trips.
Our reserve rules do suck. Things are ok now since guys are spending 2-3 months on reserve and getting a line. When the music stops, though, and it will stop eventually, a big group of guys is going to hold the bag in both seats.
I personally like what we have here. We do have our warts, but overall it’s a good job that puts food on the table and is semi enjoyable. I am always looking to improve our station in life and our contract needs a lot of improvement. Don’t mistake me for a koolie, but life is pretty good in the big scheme of things.

15 days off... IF you live in domicile. If not, since reserve isn’t commutable, you’ll use 4-5 of those days off commuting to or from domicile. Right?

No argument on pay per day. It’s a huge win.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Maybe if you do AM reserve... This certainly hasn’t been my experience when I commuted to PM reserve... YMMV.

Sure! Do you have FLY preference? As a commuter, you should.

Also, do you have your reserve blocks in TTGA? I’ve had a 4-day reserve block picked up from me when I was on reserve and commuting and I also have picked up 3-day and 4-day blocks of reserve myself from TTGA.

Yes on both questions. What was especially frustrating is that they used me for the turn, and then the guy next on the list (doing the same 4-day reserve block) got a multi-day trip while I came back to base and sat for the rest of of the days.

Fortunately that's happened only once, but commuting to our reserve is not ideal. Moving to a domicile will make life much better, and I'm in the process of making that happen. Sooner the better!

Living 2 hours from 10 different airports is a pretty large swathe of the country to live in and avoid the commute. Has Southwest ever closed a pilot base thus forcing pilots to commute?

Different story for the DFW and CVG Delta Pilots. Those are just two that come to mind. That makes for a lot of commuters who didn’t choose that life. If a pilot is commuting at SWA, didn’t he know that going in and chose to give up those 4 days a month to live where he wanted?

Also, pay attention to seniority and don’t be afraid to call scheduling if you have questions or concerns or something doesn’t seem right.

Please explain your retro payout
 

You are going to see that scenario play out from October through March this year. It is a function of being overmanned due to the classic retirements. Last year at this time, the premium was still flowing like honey. Now we are adding almost 100 FOs every month and upgrades are slow until December and we are down about 50 planes from this time last year.
Once we plus up a few airplanes and get the upgrades done, I suspect it will even out into something that is manageable. Last year I got JAd every month from January to April. While it was fruitful, I personally prefer to make the decision on the days I work and not let someone do it for me.

Dude are you serious. You are basically saying screw seniority! So lets just take away seniority and longevity scales and make everyone “equal”. Lets hand out participation trophies while we are at it!