How long would you say is “some time.” My fear is sitting short call reserve and having to commute for that and staying at a crash pad. How senior do you have to be able to avoid that? Im military so seniority, line holding, etc is a foreign language but im slowly learning it.

 

While somewhat fleet/seat dependant, reserve tends to go a bit more senior here.

RSV is a possibility after being released to the line after training, or on a VTOR line (vacation/training/opentime/reserve, known elsewhere as a "buildup line")...very junior pilots tend to get VTOR lines or Base Trip Lines (BTLs have shorter trips, <110hr time away from base). If one has a BTL, trip trading with opentime can help manipulate your schedule some.

 

I would avoid Z in that case. It's a stubbornly senior fleet. I'm under three years in and reserve is junior on the fleet. I can sort of get into VTOs and the end of the VTORs. The reserve blocks are bigger though there are a few two week ones and a fair number of four report blocks over the 56 day bid period.

I suppose you could do hotels put a pad will make it much easier.

 

...except when you have a commercial flight back from Japan, South Korea, Germany or Mexico and you can fly home in 1 leg instead of having a layover somewhere and have to sit in the airport for hours waiting on a connecting flight to SDF.

 

Folks are starting to argue semantics here. If you live in domicile, you aren’t as motivated to grab trips that begin or end with a commercial DH since they don’t do as much for you. On the other hand, a perk of commercial DHs out of SDF is the number of trips I’ve had fall apart because the as scheduled commercial gets delayed and destroys the trip. Nothing like scheduling telling you to go home and collect your paycheck for a trip you didn’t fly.

 

SDFZ PHL domicile is great if you’re senior enough to hold those double deadhead trips.

 

Yeah…that may take a while. Probably faster to just upgrade to captain

 

Just a curiosity.

is it possible for me to commute from/to ICN -ANC and work for UPS?

maybe jumpseating on a company metal (since I see a quite a few of UPS metlas at ICN)
or on atlas or kalitta seats to show up one day prior to my duty day 1 at ANC.

Unless..

UPS have Asian trip bidlines like fedex guys do , so i could just relocate by commercial flights and show up to NRT or HKG for Day1.

 

you can do whatever you want as long as you are in position and rested for your trip. We have guys living all over the world and commuting. And you can also deviate from your DH to position for your trip. However that is a little bit more complex but it’s doable.
now, our schedules aren’t commuter friendly In ANC, and you will be making your life hell commuting 4-5 times a bid period, but if you don’t mind that, go nuts.

just for a little clarity regarding ANC schedules. We are currently in the middle of a preferential bid and so far we have 20 ANC first officers moving from ANC to 74SDF or other fleets, and only two FOs going from another fleet to ANC74. I believe we have 50 opened positions for ANC FO. That should tell you just how fun it is in ANC right now. I left ANC and I will never look back, I’m actually enjoying working at UPS now.

PS: not trying to discourage you, but to prepare you for reality. It happened to me, and I wish I knew that before when I started, and I would have gone elsewhere.
I love UPS, and enjoyed it somewhat on the whale but it took a lot of mental fortitude to commute.
also, don’t count much on Atlas or K4. They have flights but run very very late. I got burned with Atlas several times with cancelations and bumping due to Atlas pilots commuting or DHs. Oh, and don’t play around too much on probation…. Make sure you are at work and rested, that’s the best advice I can give you. Even on brown tails, I’m sure u can get away with missing work due to a brown tail cancellation but don’t count for a second one. A buddy was also scolded on first year for commuting into his trip.

 

Yes, ICN ANC is a totally doable commute and fairly easy. Probably easier than living in many places in the U.S. and commuting to ANC in fact. I don’t think you’d ever need to go offline vs taking a brown tail.

Paid tickets to and from work usually go somewhat senior so can’t count on those for a while. Living in Asia you might be better off bidding Z (76 intl SDF based) vs ANC 74.