Commutable trips in MDW and BWI
 

How long would it take to get a commutable line / line in MDW and BWI? I’ve heard that SWA plans to hire 2,250 pilots in 2023. Where are they planning to grow? I am also curious of how the trips are all together . % of 3 days, 4 days and on average how many legs per day.

Unfortunately there are few commutable lines. We typically do either ams or pms.

There aren’t really any commutable lines. You might get lucky with a few trips depending where you live and where you’re based.

Trip % depends on base. Majority are 3 days though.

At least he’s finding out now and won’t end up like me looking like an idiot and asking “You mean there aren’t ANY commutable lines?!”

Spoiler alert, they also don’t pay for parking. Don’t make the same mistake I did and ask how to get parking reimbursed at your chief pilots office.

I’m commutable to MDW in January for every pairing from a SWA city in the eastern time zone. No weekends.

SWA will have to write more of these lines and open another base east of the MS if they want to hire competent pilots that can keep the good jet in one piece. Clocks ticking FUPM

Contract 2030 ... SWAG for parking

Usually the break down of trips is
1 day ~8%
2 days~ 14%
3 days~67%
4 days ~ 12%
Commutable depends on where to/from. There might be 5 lines out of 400 that are truly commutable. Some will have some trips that are commutable but usually 1 maybe 2 out of the month.
the vastmajority 80% will only be commutable on one end.
then depending on where you commute from you might get a trip that isnt on either end or most likely get rerouted or delayed so much you miss it.
Sw is not a commuter friendly airline.

Is it possible to manipulate your schedule at WN to get work blocks of 5-6 days in a row? I have heard it is "easy" for pilots to trade/drop trips with the company as long as you pick something else up after getting a line. Would this be realistic to do consistently as a line holder?

It’s easier when you can hold a weekday line. There’s no shortage of thurs or fri 3 days in open time/elitt. Mon/Tuesday starts are much harder to find and go much faster.

not hard at all to put trips together. That's pretty much what I do to have a week+ off every other week.
trading with pilots is easier if you dont care about what you want. Trading with the company isnt that easy. You'll need to want to work weekends and do all the trading within the first 7 min of it opening to get what you want. Dropping trips with the company is bear impossible.
like the other guy said ince you can hold weekday flying you can pretty much do what you want with your schedule if you're willing to work weekends