iahflyr

With Southwest starting red eyes this year, doesn’t that increase the demand for pilots?

e6bpilot

They said two years from now to the press. They haven't told us much more than that. I suspect getting the flight attendant contract locked down is one of the big steps in getting redeyes approved. After that, network planning and ops have said it will be 50 flights a day from west to east. We are gate constrained for our morning pushes, so this would essentially create a second push in some east coast stations without having the 5am flight from Rochester with 20 people that nobody wants to get out of bed for. Hawaii will definitely get a few as well, but I doubt it will be enough to really move the needle. Probably mostly Vegas/LA/NORCAL.
I suspect the pilot growth for 50 flights a day would be marginal. That's basically one percent of the current schedule. They could probably man it with our current slight overmanning situation we have right now.

Zard

Gimme a 10:30pm push outta Denver to LGA or MCO and leave me alone for 36 hours. I’d be cool with 19.5 for that.

Cyio

If they left you alone for 36 hours that would be easy, however my guess is you would work that red eye, spend the day and night in LGA and the work the early push back on day three. So more like 23 hours.

Zard

you’re definitely right. Or, They’d min rest you during the day, work a leg up or down the coast, then min rest you and flip your circadian back home. This company couldn’t fathom paying you to sit. It would take five years of fatigue calls for them to even think about how they wrote the lines.

e6bpilot

This is more along the lines of what I would expect. I think some commuters would dig the redeye to end a pairing, but I am getting too old to easily recover from that. I have done the redeye commute from Vegas and it wipes me out for two solid days.
I am betting that more often that not, that it will be a two day PM schedule with a late report on day 3 to fly one back to the east coast or maybe even Houston, Dallas, or Chicago. Either that or back from Hawaii to the west coast or PHX/LAS. I don't think Denver is positioned to see many redeyes, plus we have a f ton of gates and ramp space there.
I could be wrong, though. Probably am.
Maybe the tran-folks can lobby for CDOs. I had a flight attendant tell me all about how great they were and that it was all she ever did.

Stitches

Five years ago I'd agree 100% with this statement, and I think most of the non pilots think like this but.... I'll give Mark S. In planning a little credit, he seems to be aware and somewhat responsive to pilot behavior. There was a lot of angst about the etops trips when they first gave example pairings, but now the etops lines go senior and they get scooped up in ellitt right away.

I think most pilots won't want red eyes but I suspect within a few months with a little tweaking they will find the right balance.

saab2000

Haven't posted here in forever and don't plan to be a regular. But.......

My old regional had CDOs on the east coast. I flew a few of them. One I remember because the guy I flew with, I met him and was, "Do you even work here?" His number was close to mine but I had literally never seen him and this was a pretty small company. He told me there was a small group of dedicated folks who flew 95% of them and did so for commutability purposes. He would commute into PHL from SAN on Day 1, fly a couple of these and grab the early flight home on Day 3, earning monthly guarantee and flying like 20 hours per month. Good for him. Great guy to fly with. Total pro and I wish him well and wonder where he is today.

They have a place. Maybe at this place. I don't know if the contract has wiggle room for them but they're a good thing for a certain type of crew member. Extremely commuter friendly for the true night owls.

Turbosina

All I ever did at OO was standups. For nine years. I'd fly maybe two or three regular trips a year. Everything else was standups.

Personally, I loved them.. Well, most of them. A good one might have you report at 1930, off the gate at 2015, blocked in at 2100, in the hotel room by 2130. Then an 0530 wakeup, 0600 van, 0645 departure, back in my car by 0800 and home by 0845. This would credit 6:30 and I'd do three a week.The soft time was off the charts. You'd almost never get flow delays because of how early you departed, and the outbound leg was almost always to a small outstation with 2 gates... You'd be in the van 10 minutes after block-in, and you could schedule a van time in the morning 45 minutes prior to push and always make it off the gate early.

Of course, they were terrible for commuters, and when they went wrong, they went really wrong (like perhaps just 3 hours in the hotel room.) A few of these in a row and you'd be a zombie.

But I loved them. Us vampires had a bit of a subculture going, and we all knew each other since only a few of us were dedicated fans of split duties. Great crews.

WHACKMASTER

CDOs (standups, high speeds) are proof that satan exists.