Zard

no it’s still a war zone. You just gotta make
it through the train station to get to the k streets and you’re home free.

at6d

Hotels around the airport are under $100 with a shuttle. I found it cheaper to hotel it during reserve, especially since I was used so much.

e6bpilot

MDW has cheap hotels. I think the Springhill is like $75 otd. Same shuttle as all the other hotels on that block.

Mozam

The new mayor is awesome. All of Chicago is cleaned up. Come visit the south side of Chi some hot summer night

Glennmac

Breathing a little more life into this thread:

in a similar boat to another poster, SWA or Delta. Offers from both, have decided to go both Big Blue based on living where I want to live. I absolutely DO NOT want to commute and while I’ve never endured a commuting lifestyle, it’s something that I don’t need to experience myself to know that I want to avoid it at all costs. Commuting on DAL wide-body might be OK but that’s a long ways out over the time-horizon.

The only common thread from pilots & career advisors is to live where you want to live, hopefully that’s a base. QOL in-base (over time) at SWA seems fantastic, even as a reserve guy.

Question: If DEN becomes an ETOPs base, will the 73 have the legs to get to Hawaii and if so, what do you think those rotations will look like? Leg length, legs per day, rest time, credit hours… Will that be SWA’s equivalent of wide-body flying?

e6bpilot

Yes, the Max 7 has the legs to do Denver nonstop. No telling if this will happen, but it's a strong rumor and would make sense with the plan to feed more folks to Hawaii. It may end up being like PHX and not having an associated etops crew base, but have a few daily departures.

There is no telling what the trips would look like and too many variables to even predict with any accuracy. Most of the etops trips are not very dense, and don't credit much more than rigs. What they look like depends on the base and length of the trip. What I can guarantee you is that this won't be any sort of widebody equivalent type of flying. They will be unaugmented and uncomfortably long, cramped in a 1960s designed cockpit that was meant for 90 minute flights.

IA Moose

ETOPS is definitely “easier” flying, but it’s probably still not equivalent to widebody where you’re high fiving with someone on your way back to the bunk….but I think most people when given the choice of equal paying trips will choose ETOPS. Generally shorter duty days, fewer chances for reroutes, and much less hassle at work, like you get to take the headset off (the Max is pretty quiet) and not have to deal with nonstop radio chatter.
From west coast bases day 1 usually has 1 of 3 flavors:
A) 1 short leg (ie OAK-LGB) followed by the ETOPS leg (LGB-HNL)
B) ETOPS leg only
C) “Normal” day of 3 short non-ETOPS legs that end up overnighting at the place you’ll start the ETOPS leg the following day

Once in Hawaii the overnights are great, usually like 18-24 hour range. The interisland days vary a bit, sometimes 2x 45-minute legs, sometimes 5. Then coming back will be some variation of flavors A or B above. Pure speculation here, but if/when DEN gets ETOPS that’s probably like a 7.5 hour leg? So probably one and done on day one, do your interisland stuff on day 2, then one and done on day 3 unless you’re on a 4-day trip, then you might be 2 legs back to CA for an overnight and 3 legs west coast flying on the way home on the last day. Again many variables, but that’s a wag of what “average” could look like. Or not, what do I know…hey did you hear we’re getting 787s soon?

Glennmac

Thanks for answering.