New hire question
 

I’m coming from a regional and have a CJO at WN and have a few questions.

What’s the highest leg per day count you typically see?

What’s the typical block hour day (junior schedule)?

Average junior duty day length?

What’s the flying like at the junior domiciles?

tia

I’m coming from a regional and have a CJO at WN and have a few questions.

What’s the highest leg per day count you typically see?
average 3, as many as 5, but relatively rare.

What’s the typical block hour day (junior schedule)?
varies widely. I’d say 4-6 is typical.

Average junior duty day length?
Average about 8, but anywhere from 4-11 is common.

What’s the flying like at the junior domiciles?
flying is about the same everywhere, unless you’re doing ETOPS out of LAX/OAK. Those are Junior bases, but not sure if Hawaii flying goes senior or Junior.

tia[/QUOTE]

Ton of variables there. I would just say when you come to work, you will work. That’s how it works here with a few exceptions. You will do one leg days and four leg days. With the way things are right now you will work near contractual and 117 limits at times. Our reserves do make good money here because of all these factors, but you work…not sit.

OAK and LA have Hawaii so that can skew things as well and as a junior you will see a bunch of it (just not the super cushy stuff).

If you want to hang at a hotel for 20-30 hours at a time is this not the job for you. If you want to come into work and rack up some credit and go home, this is the place.

thanks all for your responses!

Commuting to Reserve (LAS, OAK, etc)
 

One last question. How’s commuting to reserve?
v v v v

Commuting to RSV is never awesome. No matter the airline.

One of the tools you can use is to set your preferences.

Not the best. We do not have “trip ownership”, just because you receive an assignment prior to RAP it essentially means nothing….and you are required to be in position and phone contactable (cannot ack assignments via aircraft Wi-Fi) for reserve anyway. Some issues on the back end getting released from DH back to base and things like that. Fixes are supposedly in C2020.

Trip ownership means a line pilot can’t take your reserve assignment. This CAN be useful to someone that has a two hour drive as example—so you don’t show up for an assigned trip only for it to be gone.

Once you are flying anyone is on reserve…lineholder or not!

Up until this month, I would say you would probably come out ahead using a hotel vs. a crashpad. I used to use a hotel just for the night before a reserve block started and rarely have to spend the night in base after that. For some reason this month I've spent more nights in domicile on my own dime than any other. There have been a ton of local turns that end up getting released until your RAP the next day. Not ideal for commuters, and I'm hoping it's just temporary. If not, I'm going to definitely need a crashpad pretty soon.

New hire question
 

There is no way to sugarcoat how bad commuting to reserve at SWA is. It's terrible. I did it for 18 months and it made me give serious consideration to quitting and trying another profession.

You have two options, AM or PM reserve. It's basically pick your poison and depends on your personal preference. AM you have to commute in the day before and your rap starts at around 3am local. PM you can typically fly in the same day you start your block and the rap starts around 11am.

AM reserve will have you flying mostly front side of the clock with soul crushing early reports. The last day is key, though, because you are typically not used or released very early in the day and are home for dinner.

PM reserve will be delays, reroutes, and lots of late nights. You will typically have to stay in the base on the last day of the block unless you go unused and then you can self release around 6pm and head home.

All of that being said, once you start a trip, they can and will "RAP flip" you and have you flying a trip completely opposite of your AM/PM body clock. They do this by deadheading you to the overnight city at the beginning of your RAP and then starting you early the next day and vice versa with AM to PM. Your only line of defense is a fatigue call, which most probies are hesitant to do. You will also fly with all of the avoidance bid a holes on reserve.

Used to be, reserve was pretty short lived, about 6 months or so. Right now, it's trending a lot higher than that and that is making it painful for those who have to endure it.