Curious how recent new hires that commute are feeling about the type of trips or ability to change your schedule? How many days at home are you getting? Does United allow (and is it possible) to drop trips? Focusing on NB FO but would also like to know if it’s better once off reserve on the WB? TIA

 

If I may add follow on questions.. what is UALs commuter policy? And does anything change if it’s a United flight operated by Skywest?

I currently live in California about four hours driving time SFO. Local airport has 2-3 Skywest flights a day, plus one more via LAX. I imagine the jump seat on the CRJ is rarely booked out of here..but no idea if there are weight restrictions during the summer.

Long term plan would be to move to DEN or an East Coast base, but I’d likely bid SFO initially and don’t know much about how this commute would work for the first few months.

 

You are supposed to “exercise prudent judgment, including awareness of weather and other factors affecting travel…”, however the definition of prudent judgement is open to interpretation. You have to have 2 flights on any airline that are scheduled to arrive prior to report time. If you miss your primary flight, you have to call scheduling and let them know you’re down to your backup. Depending on reserve staffing, they might positive space you or tell you to call back if you miss your flight. My experience has been that when I was commuting to the 777, they’d always positive space me, however that rarely happens on the NB since there is usually a field standby. If you miss your backup they remove you from the trip without pay, and without any risk of punishment.

My commute has about half of the flights being CRJ 200’s and you should basically plan on them being weight restricted and unable to take a jumpseater, especially in the winter. On non-exclusive regionals like SkyWest the jumpseat is awarded at time of check in, up to 12 hours prior. On exclusive regionals, the jumpseat priority goes by seniority, behind all pilots on their own metal of course. Welcome to the machine.

 

I'd rather do the 4 hour drive, especially when you're on probation.

 

When you're on probation they certainly can fire you for not being a good fit, and not reliably making it to work meets that definition, even if you are abiding by the 2 flight rule. I do not plan on using the "2 flight rule" at all while I'm on probation, and I recommend all new hires do the same. Now if you're off probation and a full member of the union? Completely different.

edit: I'll add in that in my CPO welcome, they talked about 3 strikes for probation members before you're in serious danger of being fired. Dropping dead due to medical/passport/CBT's expiring and not being in position for a trip were the 2 most common strikes, and I didn't ask about how the commuting policy factored in there. But I take that as a warning to not need the commuter policy more than 2-3 times if you want to stay off the radar.

 

You are a wise person.

 

Drop trips?!?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

New hires are protected by the contract just like those off of probation, however being that the term “prudent judgment” isn’t defined, I wouldn’t have pushed it when I was on probation either. Now I just don’t care though. I average around 4-5 missed trips a year. I usually get on, but if not I go home and just chalk it up to the cost of living where I want to.

 

As a new hire NB FO you can expect:

Cant drop trips, can’t trade trips (except directly with another pilot), 87-90 hour line with 13 days off.

And that’s after you get off reserve, during which you will be converted to shortcall/FSB ad nauseum. You will drive 4 hours to SFO for a field standby, and upon arrival immediately get released into rest for an early AM short call the next morning.

 

This is incredibly accurate.