Totally depends on the trip once you are off reserve. It could be a red eye leaving at 9pm

Ok, so no prior 121 experience I assume. In that case here’s a summary of commuting 101:

1. Offline commuting refers to commuting on other airlines. Let’s say you want to commute on AA mainline to DFW. They have a priority system. You might list several days ahead but doesn’t mean you get the cockpit jumpseat. If an AA mainline pilot comes last minute, he has priority over you. If an AA eagle pilot comes, he has priority over you. So if the jumpseat is taken, they’ll put you on pax stby list (at the very bottom). Even below that non-rever that works for an airline you never heard before and bought a zed on AA. Now let’s say you’re commuting on AA Eagle. You’ve got the jumpseat. It’s your lucky day right? Well not so fast, if it’s a 50 seater it might get weight restricted, that means you’ll be the first one to get bumped. CRJ200/ERJ145 = commuter’s nightmares.

2. Online commuting refers to jumpseating on your own company. Our system logic it’s first come first serve. You can list for the jumpseat 72hrs prior to departure time. If you’re the first one to list, the jumpseat is yours. No senior pilot will bump you. If somebody beats you to listing for the J/S, now you’d be placed on the pax stby list. Your priority will depend on the code (S3?) and your seniority. Except some A319s, NK planes only have one cockpit jumpseat. (yeah rat bastards)

3. We have a commuters policy. In simple words, you need to give yourself 2 flight options to make it on time for your trip. You’d have to be able to prove that you listed for those 2 flights. If you played by the rules and didn’t make it, you’re off the hook, but not pay protected.

Since he is asking about DFW it would be safe to assume he or she will be commuting on AA or American Eagle frequently.

in that case you always have to create a travel listing through a website you’ll get access to once you get on line here at Spirit. On AA/Eagle you don’t list for the Jumpseat you just list. And you get accommodated in the order you are in the list.

Your travel priority is D6U and you only get the jumpseat if there are no more seats in the cabin and there are no other FDJ eligible pilots (in D1/D2 or D6 priority) are ahead of you on the standby list. Priority for OAL D6 pilots is by checkin time so if you don’t make it on the flight it is of utmost priority to ask the agent to “roll” you over to another/next flight even if it’s not to the same destination as your original listing, using the same listing as opposed to creating new listing which resets your checkin time.

if you show up to the gate and you can’t list because the system won’t let you then you just need to create a listing anywhere doesn’t matter what flight or where the flight is going. When you check in with the agent you just inform them you are listed on flight XYZ but want to see about getting on this flight. The agent will pull your listing from the other flight and check you in on the flight you are currently at the gate for..

it’s a bit confusing at first but you get the hang of it.

Not necessarily. Depends on which reserve period you get. For example, you get R03 for the month. This means your 14 “on call” period starts at 0300am and finishes at 5pm. In this scenario, you will have to commute the night prior, unless you check your schedule and see that they have assigned you a trip starting let’s say 11am and you self notify. If on the last day of reserve they haven’t used you, you auto release 6hrs prior. In this scenario you’d be free to go at 11am, so you’d be able to commute on a working day. If you get R10, that could be a pretty tight commute on the first day, but it might work out depending on several factors.

If you get R19 (LAS, MCO, FLL) you would be able to easily commute on the same day since you’re starting at 7pm. You’d also be able to commute back on a working day because you’d finish at 3am (9am-6) if not used of course. Another good thing about R19 it’s the fact that each RAP has a 2 calendar day footprint. This means the maximum consecutive R19 you can have in a row is 5. If you don’t waive the 4 day off min, you’ll basically end up having 5 RAPs, and 5 nights off at home. The downside would be all the red eyes that you’ll have to suck up.

We also have long call reserve (LCR). It has a 14 hour call out, so you don’t have to commute until they call you, assuming of course you can always make it on that 14hr window round the clock. LCRs are the ones getting called first, so you’d be pretty busy specially during summer time. You might get back to back trips, so probably will have to get a hotel in between.
LCR usually goes senior in the reserve leagues as there’re only few LCR lines and commuters prefer them.

With the way PBS works, LCR isn’t always as senior as it used to be, although there do seem to be fewer LCR lines each month these days.

It’s important to note that scheduling can convert long call to short call reserve up to 4 times a month, which can leave commuters in a bind.

example: You have a 6 day block of long call reserve, and get assigned a 4 day trip on the first day. Normally when you finish and get released back to LCR, you would have 24 hours (10 rest + 14 notification) which makes you pretty useless for the last two days. Instead they can convert those last two days to ashort call period. Depending on your commute situation this can mean being “stuck” in base 2-2.5 days. Sucks if you didn’t pack for 6 days.

In the last example make sure they are properly following the contract in conversions. a conversion is an assignment and follows assignment order aka if there is another LCR with also 2 days left (or even one in this case) then they must follow the order which includes seniority as well.

Most bases don't have enough LCRs to ever sit in the same amount of days off as other LCRs but I know FLL it's pretty common.

DFW is working to get 3 more gates but we also have the looming BWI crew base opening. When MCO opened the company pillaged DFW for crews and airframes. Everyone went backwards in seniority and the bottom guys had to update their involuntary displacement bid. Not sure what will happen in DFW this summer but it'll be interesting.

Thanks, this was a lot of good info.

Anyone that interviewed the 12th hear anything yet? I know it's a little early....but just wondering...

I haven’t heard anything yet