Commutable Pairings
 

Can anyone give a bit of insight into how commutable the pairings are (in general) at Spirit? I know it varies from base to base, but for example, what percentage of pairings have first day show times after 1200 and last day duty off times before, say, 1600? I know it's impossible to give exact numbers, just trying to get a ballpark idea. If I were fortunate enough to come onboard at Spirit, I'd be commuting from a non-hub airport in Texas. DFW base would be the ultimate goal and an easy single leg commute even with fairly early shows/late releases. But from what I gather, new hires are not getting DFW out of class, so any of the other bases would be two leg and fairly inefficient commutes. And as a follow on question, once you hold a line, is it still fairly easy to drop and pick up trips during the improvement windows in order to get a more commutable schedule? I've seen in lots of previous posts that there's a ton of flexibility in the system, but just wondering if that has changed at all with the implementation of PBS, current staffing levels, etc. Any input is greatly appreciated!

Not sure I’ve ever done a commutable pairing out of dfw. Most flying leaves between 5-8am and returns 9-midnight. There are trips with one end commutable but don’t see many with both.

I agree. I see mostly early morning report times for DFW pairings. But if it’s commutable on the front end, usually it returns around midnight.

Pairings change quiet often depending on the month and specially, depending on the season. Pairings in smaller bases like DFW would get affected (more) by early departures and late a arrivals, these varying greatly depending on the season. I don’t have first experience with DFW but there’s no point in giving you specifics about what’s going on right now anyways for the reasons I just mentioned. You get my point. If you want to see the silver lining a 4 day trip that starts early and finishes late, it’s probably worth 23-25 hrs because our 3.5:1 trip rig.

If you’re a line holder there’s a ton of flexibility (reserve = 0). You can change your schedule constantly throughout the month. We don’t have an “improvement window”. We have initial open time, where you can modify your schedule based on seniority, and after that we have daily open time, which is independent of seniority and the latest you can trip trade/drop is 2 days prior by noon ET. You can also pick up out of base, but you’d be restricted to the green/red grid to the original Trip’s base.

The bad news is, DFW is our most senior FO base at the moment. It’s not growing at all. You might be able to hold DFW a few months after training but holding a line could take forever. If you’re a commuter, I think you’d be better off going to a base where you could hold a line, and then pick up trips from DFW. In the meantime, you just got to figure out where do you want to commute to reserve (ughh)

Thing that I’m seeing now in DFW is if you don’t snag trips from open time within the first few minutes of open time opening, there won’t be very much to choose from as time goes on as line holders from other bases who live in DFW but can’t hold DFW swap the trips from their bases and pick up DFW trips.

at least that is what has been going on the last two months.

plenty of trips to choose from in mco and fll, but very few in ord and dfw.

DFW has been a hard commute since it opened. I was a commuter my first year here. I could either drive 15 mins to a small airport close to my home and commuted to DFW or driven an hour and a half to a major airport and commuted a longer flight to FLL. I chose FLL after 3 months of getting cheap (TERRIBLE) motels and sleeping in the terminal from 11-5am waiting on the morning flight home. DFW has always sucked for commuters.

LAS will have at lease one end that’s commutable. Red eye the first day and get back late day 4, which credit 20-23 hrs. 3 day trip that start with a red eye, long layover and get back very early on day 3 which credit 10 hrs. We also have 4 day trip that leave at 9AM - Noon, and get back late afternoon which also credit 20-23 hrs. I would say LAS is very good as a commuter if you can deal with the red eyes.

All great info guys (although, that's disappointing about DFW). Looks like Vegas would be the best bet for my situation based on what I'm hearing. I'm a night owl so I don't "think" red-eyes would be an issue for me. Looks like you could do three 4-day rotations, get 60-70 hours, and only have three hotel nights (either on front end or back end of the trip). That still gives you 15 days off and a (relatively) stress-free commute. The others would be a bit tougher, but I guess the goal would be, if you can't get a commutable trip, get a trip that is as densely packed with credit as possible, so maybe you only have to do three rotations per bid period to get reasonable credit and just "bake in" commuting days as part of the equation.

Couple of other questions - I know it changes daily, but does anyone have a current idea how the bases are ranking right now from Jr. to Sr.? And maybe how long it takes to hold a line in each? (Again, I know it's a moving target, just looking for today's projections). And are new hires getting ACY? I posted a list of earliest 2 flight arrivals and latest departures for the different bases to my home airport below. You'll notice that ACY is basically impossible for me. I'd always have to go in the day before and always come home the day after, regardless of the start/end times. With the exception of Vegas, are any of the times below reasonable to expect either a front or back commutable pairing? I'm guessing most are not gonna work out (again, besides maybe Vegas). Thanks again for all the info!

earliest 2 flight arrival / latest departure
mco 1205 / 1930
fll 1205 / 1910
dtw 1353 / 1925
las 0900 / 1645
dfw 0800 / 2035
ord 1135 / 1835
acy complete nightmare

There are other recent threads with base seniority discussions, I suggest you go through them.

Is DFW the only one-leg commute from your city? Maybe if you share where you live, other commuters in similar situation could give you more insight.

No matter how you look at NK, if your commute sucks, you’ll never fully enjoy the benefits of our schedules. I know that could be said about any airline, but if you’re commuting on your own metal, or at least on the regional of the legacy you work for, things will be infinitely easier.

If moving to a base it’s out of the question, then I would seriously consider living based on 60-70hrs of credit a month. That way you’d only have to work 3 4-day trips a month. We have some commuters here that claim they don’t move to base because the high cost of living related to big cities, yet they seem eager to credit 90+ hrs. Can’t have it both ways, at least not in happily manner.

When I was based there there were tons of commutable 3 days, problem was they were always back to back, with the early start first, and the late finish last, so 3 eight day trips a month.....

Your last paragraph describes exactly what I’m considering. It would be a “happy” medium between pay and schedule for a commuter at NK I think. And Spirit actually allows that sort of thing (no min credit requirement) assuming the coverage is there. I live in Lubbock, TX, so as far as 1 leg goes, DFW is it for NK bases. There is one non stop to vegas each day, but that’s it. Everything else for every other base is two legs.

For March, 84% of the DFW trips are 4-days. There are very, very few that are commutable on both ends. The majority of pairings there have always started early and ended late. A "good" commutable 4-day starts after 10 am, and ends by 5 pm, and is worth around 20ish hours, which means as a line holder, PBS will assign 4 per month. You wod have mixed rests dropping specific pairings. Right now, as mentioned, it's fairly easy. I've also had difficulty some months unloading commutable 4-day weekday trips. The commuting options to anywhere out of Lubbock seem rather limited, is it realistic and sustainable to live there and commute to any major hub, especially to reserve? I mean, you do still have to allow 2 flight options to be protected by the commuter clause.

I know reserve will be a complete nightmare out of Lubbock, no matter what the base. As for the other bases, DFW would still be preferable because it's just one leg, several flights a day, I have family and friends there, etc. However, I think other bases, particularly Vegas (since they have the red-eyes that start late) might still work ok, because my plan would be (once I hold a line) to try and get three 4-day rotations per month at about 60-65 hours. Even if one end isn't commutable, that basically means I have three 5-day rotations (including the three travel days) and still have 15 days off. It's not ideal, but it's sort of a happy medium between getting reasonable days off and reasonable (although reduced) pay.

Not to hijack the thread, but what about commutabilty for say ORD or DTW?

Not to hijack the thread, but what about commutabilty for say ORD or DTW?

Cant speak for DTW. But even when I was a super jr lineholder in ORD, I was getting commutable lines both ends. But I bid for that above all other preferences usually. Something like 9:45am and later starts, release by 5 or 6 pm. So I guess it depends on where you are flying from. ORD seems to have alot of commuters from all over just from what Iv observed, and most the “local” guys that drive to work that I meet either drive from WI, IN, or even western MI.

Thank you for the info. I’d be coming from MEM or BNA.

Just keep in mind if you try for low credit 4 day trips (60-65 hours for 3) you’ll have more trips build to meet the credit window and then you’ll have to go in and drop. Usually dropping in IOT isn’t an issue, but being junior, it’s subject to availability.

I would commute to LAS over DFW. As others have said, DFW is probably the second worst commuting base, second to ACY, and any commutable 4 days will be sucked up by senior guys

ORD it’s pretty senior. DTW is way faster for holding a line. Also MCO could be a good option out of BNA. No matter where you go, it would take at least 6 months to hold a line at a jr base (12-18 months at ORD/DFW). So the first question you need to answer yourself is where do you want to sit reserve? As a commuter I would go to base that has R19 (MCO does). R19 has only 15 periods per month, so that will give you plenty of time at home. The downside is that they’ll use you less, so better have a decent crash pad (and maybe nice WX ;).

Once you’re a lineholder you can swap/pick up trips from any base, making BNA a strategically positioned airport.
Obviously, there’s nothing like living in base, but at least you’d have a way better commute that our friend from Lubbock. (waaayyyy better)

That was hurtful :-(. Kidding, I know LBB is FAR from ideal. But it’s so green here, we have so many trees, it’s 72 degrees all the time............wait.......we don’t have any of that either. FML. I just have to go into it expecting year 1 to suck. Hopefully I’d be at the end of the tunnel by then and have something tolerable. Of course, I don’t have the job yet so my cart and horse are poorly arranged.

With MEM you hit the jackpot! You can fly Fedex to work.

In all seriousness, you should consider moving to a base at some point. If moving down the road is out of the question, I would keep pushing for UA or AA. Don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I can see you getting frustrated sooner than later, unless of course, you’re well off or your spouse has excellent income, and you’re planning on being a part-timer. Good luck cowboy!

Looks like a few routes got cut out of dfw (den, msp)

Seems to be a trend in the system, taking what was once day turns and incorporating them into multi day pairings.

I agree. If you can’t move to base you might as well (try) and work for an airline with better pay, retirement etc if you’re going to commute and be miserable, be miserable where you get paid more.


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How are the lines in DTW? Commutable? Good overnights?

DFW-MSP is seasonal. Ended mid Nov, starts again Apr. 22.

Since we have introduced PBS, lines are what you (and your seniority) make of them, so it’s more a function of whether your are able to be awarded pairings that are commutable.

As far a what constitutes a “good” overnight is pretty subjective. Long vs short hotel location, times of arrival and departure, effectiveness of transportation are all things that can make a layover in a desirable city better or worse. I flew with a guy the other day who bids for hotels with the “best gyms” and could care less what city they are in.

He's ripped, too.

Plane Coffee

Can you fly 1000 hours in the first 9 months and then have the rest of the year off paid? Someone asked me that and I had no idea if it was possible or not especially with 117.

You would end up getting a little time off. But the limit is 1000 hours per twelve consecutive months, not calendar years.

Max block in 672 is 100, as I recall. Makes doing it in any given 9 months a real challenge.

as well as 100 hours in previous 28 days. So no it is not possible to fly 1000 block in 9 months. Maybe 10 months, but highly unlikely. Its a rolling 28 day and twelve month lookback. So hit 1000, wait however long it takes to show Below 1000 in the last 365 days and less than 100 in the last 28 days (672 hours, to be exact) Highly unlikely unless you really, really work extra. I know Id be burned out after 2-3 months of 100 block months. No way would I do 10

Anyone here commute to FLL and have my hotel recommendations? Much appreciated

they are either terrible or expensive. largest cruise ships in the world leave out of FLL.

lots of crew members use the red carpet. Think the crew rate depends on the day of the week. Last time I used it over a year ago, I want to say it was around $65-75. But it isn’t the nicest place. They can give you a late checkout tho.

The hotel situation in FLL is pretty terrible.