can anyone tell me which are the most junior bases? How long to hold each of the bases? Thanks =)

If you go by the bottom 4 pilots on the list...ONT is the most junior, followed by SDF. Looking at everyone hired June-August this year, the overwhelming majority of newhires went SDF 757/A300/MD11 or SDFZ (Z is 757 International).

Contract 2016 has a new provision by which 2017 newhires will be able to bid for available vacancies (domicile and fleet), which will be awarded in seniority order.

The company contractually must publish a bid containing vacancies, and any outstanding vacancies after the bid closes go to newhires. I would think such a bid would come out sometime in the next 3-4 weeks...and what eventually is available for newhires depends on what vacancies the company publishes and how they get filled internally.

I would suspect SDF/SDFZ to be fairly available (it is the biggest domicile by far), then ONT, MIA less so, and ANC is senior.

ANC is senior? Wow. I'd figure that to be the "LGA" of all the pax airline first year FO's... too expensive and too cold!

They must have a pretty sweet bid sheet in ANC.

Is that the big draw to ANC?

K

Anchorage is terrible. The flying stinks, it's always cold and dirty. Tell all of your friends to stay away.

Three numbers: 7 4 7

Yep, guys commute all the way to ANC just so they can tell their Facebook friends they are a 747 pilot.

Yeah, the aweful domestic fleet lines have nothing to do with us committing all the way to ANC.. :rolleyes:

C'mon, you don't honestly believe what you just wrote do you??

Wrong.

It's scheduling, pure and simple.

After 8+ years commuting to ANC (747) from SoCal, I bid back down to ONT so I wouldn't have to commute anymore. Biggest mistake I've ever made at Brown. The lines in ONT stink compared to ANC.

I thought that not having to commute anymore would make up for the less than desirable lines...nope, I was wrong. I fly mostly international (through VTO bidding), and the trips are horrendous. If three legs a night transiting through SZX with crappy short layovers are your cup of tea, then by all means, bid ONT.

I'm bidding back to the 747 as soon as possible. I'm hoping that they'll let me out of the seat lock, so I can go back to the whale, sooner, rather than later. The only thing I'll miss not flying out of ONT is the SIN and PEN layover...everything else you can have.

Those aren't SDFZ trips? I didn't realize that ONT went that far. I just thought it was HNL.

MBB

Did the ANC 747 commute for 4 years. It does get old. Since I did not live near ONT or MIA it seemed logical that SDF would work. Its no picnic though.

Fortunately I have been able to hold MD in SDF. Moved here so RSV is tolerable, at least until recently. Contract 2016 may have changed that with the new RSV language. I know the under-staffing isn't helping the matter.

Good luck in returning to ANC. But if it requires the company to waive a seat lock, I wouldn't hold your breath.