MoovenUP

Good Morning ladies and gentlemen. I would love to work for SWA, but my biggest hang up is QOL. My chosen base would be MDW, and my commute would be from an airport that has 3 seasonally 4 flights per day to ORD. I have some friends who are junior pilots at SWA, and they say it's a rough proposition for myself. I realize even Jr pilots get a lot more(2-4) days off than I do currently. However a commute in the day prior and leaving town day after makes a lot less time at home. Currently I am able to drive to work. I know, simple answer is move to base. And my simple answer is no thanks. Way later in life I would like to live in Florida, and realize it is Sr but in 25 years maybe a new hire from today can hold it. I am asking if I am setting myself up for failure and a lot of stress with a young family and all. How long to hold commutable trips? Working 6 day stretches is an option that would help commute less, if it is even possible with the trips ending late starting early. Thanks for the help.

Smooth at FL450

1. Commuting sucks, from my perspective as a non-commuter talking to guys I fly with who do.
2. Commuting off-line to an airport we don't serve sounds exponentially worse.
3. We don't really have commutable lines. That being said, January does have the first I've seen that are commutable on both sides. I'm sure those went very senior.

4. Junior guy in MCO was hired end of August.
5. Move to base, your family will appreciate the extra time at home and stress free life it affords you.

CaptYoda

Along those lines, which junior base seems to have the best crash pad/commuter hotel options close to the respective airport.

Smooth at FL450

Not OAK...I'll have to let an actual commuter fill in the rest.

saab2000

MDW has lots of hotels and crashpads.

What is the city in question?

Yes, commuting sucks. I drive to work normally and sometimes fly. Living within an hour of the airport by car is life changing for the better.

I知 moving to base soon.

CaptYoda

I would be commuting from ATL until such time as I can hold it. So I guess I am looking at BWI, MDW, HOU, MCO as a newbie.

Smokey23

Pretty much what the others have already said. There are commutes and then there are commutes!. I did the former by choice for a little over a decade in pursuit of an upgrade and better schedules vs. a 2 hr drive to a senior domicile. It sounds like you would be setting up for the latter, which would also be setting you up for a divorce. We've got nine domiciles and one squadron spread all over the country, with more on the way. Realistically if you want to come work here, you should plan on picking one to live in or at least have a short online commute to. If the family absolutely, positively cannot relocate, then your best bet is to go work for an airline that flies a lot of international out of ORD. FAR117 has allowed us the ability to bunch trips together more than we used to, but that would still be a dicey headwind for you to fight on a monthly basis...for the better part of your career.
Best of luck to you!

saab2000

This is all true. I would only add that even short, online commutes can be tough. There are 3 flights per day to where I live. It's a 3 hour drive or a 35 minute flight. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Fly every time. But door to door it is the same time commitment. The difference is that by driving I control my own destiny.

But I fly AM lines so I am pretty much required to come in the day before and get a hotel (I don't like crashpads) and that's $88 out the door, plus my evening before the trip is shot.

If I fly in I still have to come in the day before and get a home and then I have to try to get a trip that finishes in time for me to get the afternoon flight home, which if I don't the late one isn't for like another 9 hours.

The bottom line is that living in base really is the best thing. We have a bunch to choose from and no matter how much I've tried to make this seemingly easy 3-hour drive work, it's a PITA and I'll be moving to a base in the spring. There's simply too much time lost not living in base.

ROFF

Agree with all here.

The big thing for me is the time. My commute is beyond easy but it’s still a commute. I fly PMs so the first day I’m usually beat. Then the last day the commute home is just enough to finish me off where other wise I’d be enjoying a late dinner with my family.

I look at it this way;

4 trips a month, 3 hours of additional commuting time on each side ( that’s low btw but what my easy commute is). That’s 24 hours a month which is really two days.

That’s 24 days a year gone to commuting. That’s a very rosy figure too. I rarely have to spend a night but it does happen. A day lost.

That’s 24 days lost. That a lot of $$ if you convert it to work and a lot of family/hobby/fun time.

NTM the commmute dictates what kind of trips I fly. One and two day trips? Nope. 3 and 4 days. More time away. High value trips? Are they commuteable? Nope, guess I’m doing the low value trip because it’s commuteable.

Over a career or even a decade you can see what it will cost you.

Thankfully my commuting days are numbered. I can’t wait to live in base!!

CA1900

The vast majority of SWA's trips are split between "AM" and "PM" trips, which either report and release very early, or report in the afternoon and finish very late. Because of this, with very few exceptions, you're either going to be starting before any commuter flights come in, or finishing after any available flights home.

You should be able to go home the same day as you finish an AM, but you'd have to come the night before. Or, come the same day as a PM, but spend the night before coming home. I did that for several months, coming up the morning of a PM trip (or PM reserve, meaning landing by 9am), and after getting done at ~1am, crashed in the pilot lounge for a few hours then took the 5am flight home.

It was doable, but it wasted a lot of time I could have spent at home, and I ended up moving to a domicile within my first year. Some guys commute their whole career, but my wife and quickly realized that the move would be worth the QOL improvement, so we bit the bullet and are much happier.

Assuming hiring continues, being based in MCO would not take more than six months. While there are some junior pilots there, it's a super senior base otherwise, and if you ever plan to upgrade, expect to be on reserve for quite a while. (Being on reserve greatly limits your schedule flexibility compared to being a lineholder.)

Honestly? Yes. I hate to discourage you from trying to get the job, as it really is a terrific one, but the commuting situation you describe sounds absolutely hellish and I don't believe you'd have much of a home life at all.

Even doing a single-leg commute on SWA, as I did, is a big time-suck compared to driving to work. But you're talking about an off-line (other airline) commute to another airport, which takes it to a whole new level of hassle. You're not commuting on SWA, so that'll require you to try two flights to be protected by our commuter policy, versus needing only one flight on SWA. That means you can't take the last one of the day the night before -- you'll have to take the next-earlier one when you go to work. With only 3 flights a day, you may be leaving your house before lunch when you're not even working that day!

You're going to be an absolute zombie. I doubt there will be two flights that'd get you to work in time for most PM trips, so I assume you'll have to come the day before to do AM trips. On your last day of a trip, you'll be reporting at maybe 5am Central, working until 2pm, getting to ORD maybe at 4pm, then taking the next flight home. On a good day you'll probably be up for 18 hours before even getting to your car.

If you're absolutely dead-set on not moving, an airline that has a base in ORD might be a better fit for you.

At Southwest? Never. Our trips are almost universally uncommutable on one side or the other because of our AM/PM structure. That may change if we start doing red-eyes, but there's no indication of that coming any time soon. Otherwise, I'd expect to be in a hotel or crashpad 5-6 days a month if you commute; possibly more depending on how the flights between ORD and your home are scheduled.

Unfortunately trips that do that (a PM trip rolling into an AM trip), and have enough of a rest period between trips to make them legal, are extremely uncommon. The PMs in my base usually end between 9pm and midnight, and the AMs start between 4:30am and 8am. Those wouldn't be legal to put together.

Your best bet would probably be trying to do two 3-day trips (both AM or PM) in a row. You're still burning a hotel or crashpad between trips, but at least minimizing the time spent actually commuting. Alternately, you could look for a line with 4-day trips. There are fewer of them than 3-day trips, but they're out there.

Don't mean to be negative, but want you fully aware of what you'd be getting yourself into. Good luck!