dawgdriver

Good to hear. Not to be confrontational, but you got a CJO...did you actually work at said legacy and find it to be lacking in flexibility? Which one? Odd because none of the big 3 require another pilot to pick up your dropped trips. Good luck with that at SWA as you're competing with premium open time or better TFP-to-block ratios. Sure you might be able to move some trips around but dropping them or clearing your schedule is another story.

Never claimed everybody wants a widebody. Having the choice of QOL, pay and lifestyle in the right seat of a widebody causes senior guys to bid it and allows for much quicker upgrades for guys on the narrowbody side.

Skyward

Do you work at SW?

No, I didn’t work at the legacy. Just a CJO at UAL with a lot of research and friends sharing schedules at both companies. I may just be lucky, but I’ve never really had any trrouble giving away trips (including clearing 75% of my schedule when I’ve tried to do that). The nice thing at WN is that I can start out with more days off to begin with generally due to the hard lines. With PBS it’s only as good as your seniority (been there, done that at another airline). Potential back-to-back trips with 13, 14, 15 days off... no thanks. Don’t get me wrong, the legacies are a fantastic career, but I’ve had tremendous flexibility at WN.

dawgdriver

No, routine chatter from SW guys in the crash pad. I was just curious what your experience was. Thanks.

Smokey23

Try talking to a few SW pilots who aren't commuters. You may get a very different perspective.

dawgdriver

Thanks, but as a permanent commuter, while appreciated, their perspectives aren't what I was looking for. Ease of dropping trips, clearing schedules, etc. Just trying to get answers, not poking at anyone's gig.

e6bpilot

Fourth year FO commuter here and I can drop at least 3-4 days a month, usually more in overlap and giveaway. I can often drop 1-2 days in elitt as well. It takes a couple extra hours of work a month in bidding carefully and working elitt, but it’s doable.
In January and February I could have cleared my whole month easily due to the available flying right now vs bodies to do it.
In truth, it depends highly on the month, but we are able to easily move days around and drop days when needed. I haven’t felt “stuck” in a non holiday trip since I have been on reserve.

dawgdriver

Good stuff man. Thanks.

RckyMtHigh

If I had to commute, SWA would be at the bottom of my list.

Skyward

The trip construction (AM or PM) makes it tough for commuters for sure. There are some commutable trips on both ends, but many more trips that are not. The commuter policy with one flight on company metal is good stuff compared to most others though. There’s nothing like living in base though for sure.

e6bpilot

It’s really highly dependent on your commuter city and base. If I chose to, I could fly exclusively commutable trips. Some months I do, some I choose pay/days off/trip quality/etc and fly a trip that doesn’t work out with my commute.
I look at it this way...right now my March schedule has 10 days total. If I wanted to fly guarantee or thereabouts, I need to add 3 days. That’s 13 days total for a full month of pay.
Even if I had to spend two nights in base commuting, that would still beat most other airline schedules.
I didn’t spend a single night commuting last month. This month I chose to twice for various reasons, mainly to fly an AM trip that has long overnights with family and to fly a super easy trip with a layover that I wanted.
Some city pairs it doesn’t work out and I get that completely, but saying “Southwest doesn’t have commutable trips” is a misnomer.