Commuting out of OKC

HeyEng

HeyEng

Well-Known Member
So is there anyone out there that commutes out of OKC? If so, where are you based and is it a pain (OK, I know commuting is a pain no matter what but I mean more than normal)...thanks!
 
GalaxyIFE said:
So is there anyone out there that commutes out of OKC? If so, where are you based and is it a pain (OK, I know commuting is a pain no matter what but I mean more than normal)...thanks!
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I'm not in OKC, but wanted to ask what is taking you to OKC?
Dallas is a couple hour drive.
 
Just looking to the future, and OKC is where I would like to live. I do not like the OKC-DFW drive too much (folks in Texas do not understand what the left lane is for) and wanted to solicit experiences...
 
GalaxyIFE said:
Just looking to the future, and OKC is where I would like to live. I do not like the OKC-DFW drive too much (folks in Texas do not understand what the left lane is for) and wanted to solicit experiences...
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I heard AMF has a base there, not sure how hard it would be to get it tho, someone from there might chime in on that.

I would love to live there too. Already have the house and everything!
 
GALAXY.....BRADMIKE99 flies for Ameriflight and is based in OKC. He'll be here until he upgrades to the turbine equipment since his run isn't a turbine run. I met up with him and he leaves OKC in the morning, flies to Altus (layover there all day) and then hits Clinton and back to OKC in the evening. Not helping much with your original question since you asked about commuting. I looked briefly into commuting possibilities for future prospects....out of OKC it seems fairly easy to get to Houston if you want to get on with ExpressJet; Denver/Chicago if you want to get on with Skywest, and Dallas/Chicago if you are looking at American Eagle. I was kind of looking around for one leg trips that weren't more than a couple of hours. Again, I was merely looking for future commuting ops out of OKC area. I did hear on the radio the other day too...ExpressJet has flights from OKC to San Antonio, Ontario and I believe San Diego. Didn't look to see how many of these flights were leaving OKC. If any of this info helps...cool....if not, disregard :-)

Pac Man
 
Way cool guys....thanks. This is the reason that this board rules! :rawk:

I wish I knew about Mike flying through Altus, I just left there about 8 months ago to move to San Antonio. The GF is from OK and I do admit I like OKC a lot. I think that the commute won't be too bad since it is a big enough market that there are several non-stop flights a day to SAT, DFW and HOU. Of course, I am looking at this game in 5-6 years, and we all know that there are BOUND to be changes. Hopefully for the good... better contracts, better money, but still robust hiring. Oh yes, still looking for that crystal ball too. Anyone got one of those?
 
Heh. Weight and balance stuff blows on ANY regional jet. Most of our issues are with balance rather than weight in the CRJ.

Pinnacle based outta MEM is probably just as easy a commute from OKC as DFW. We've got a lot of flights in and out of there last time I checked.
 
Pinnacle has been very good to me actually. Only Eagle has been a thorn in my side. You might as well not even try for their jumpseat, it seems.
 
I would be careful with XJT. I haven't done OKC-IAH in a while, but everytime I have it's been in an EP, which can get weight restricted very easily. There are a bunch of commuters from both CAL and us out of there.

The good news is that we fly OKC to ONT and SAT non-stop out of there, so those are an option as well. You don't need to be based in IAH.
 
Van_Hoolio said:
Pinnacle has been very good to me actually. Only Eagle has been a thorn in my side. You might as well not even try for their jumpseat, it seems.
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That's funny... I've only been denied a jumpseat 3 times ever. One was a disgruntled mainline guy who said I took his flying and hence wasn't welcome (pro stands took care of that I think) and the other 2 were Eagle and said they were "restricted". Go figure.
 
Even if the flight is weight restricted, there are ways to get around that. On the CRJ, there's no way to know that you absolutely CANNOT take a JSer until you've got the final cargo numbers (unless for some reason you need a LOT of fuel). The main problem we have is with the plane being nose heavy with a JSer. If you've got 1600 lbs or so in the cargo bin, you're normally good to go. What I've been taught by my CAs is bank on that, get the cargo numbers, and use ballast to bring it up to 1600. There's an STC out for the CRJ that has a brick-type thing bolted into the tail that supposedly fixes the nose heavy issues (which stops the "move pax from zone 1 to zone 4" ACARS messages, too), but so far our request to have that installed have fallen on deaf ears....
 
It also depends on the BOW aircraft index. Our CRJs go from a low of around 43 to a high of around 49 which is huge when trying to squeeze a guy up front. If the index is around 43 you can bet you need at least 1900-2000 lbs in the back.
 
Wow. Our BOWs aren't that high. We're in the 30s range. Then again, they did just pull out half the drinks, so that must be the difference....
 
kellwolf said:
Wow. Our BOWs aren't that high. We're in the 30s range. Then again, they did just pull out half the drinks, so that must be the difference....
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Dang 30's. 45-48 is the norm at OH. Pulling the catering stuff made that much of difference?
 
Come to XJT. You could commute to ONT or SAT easily, since our jets are hardly weight restricted (on the branded side). We had a weight increase on our EMB-145LRs, and the EMB-145XRs are great in terms of carrying weight. You can also two-leg it on Southwest.

I was joking before, if I only had to worry about weight restrictions... now we have to worry about out-climbing the auto pressurization. :D
 
To cool guys...I appreciate all the info. Time will tell what will happen in 5 years. I hate the idea of sitting around waiting that long, but to throw away a retirement check is well...stupid. Xjet sure seems like the place to be, but we know how that goes...
 
FlyChicaga, do most of the the Continental Express ERJ's have the same weight restriction problems as Eagle's? I'm trying to temporarily do a TUS-BNA commute, and Continental/Xjet through Houston is convenient, but I'm really gun-shy about relying on ERJ's from my lack of luck with Eagle.

With the CRJ, the only way it's impossible to work in a jumpseater is with a lot of alternate fuel. Without one, we're almost always going to run up on ZFW first, and with 50 pax and a jumpseater you should be able add ballast (assuming the station has it) to get cargo numbers well over 2000lbs and still be under ZFW. An alternate can definately screw you, though, as can a grumpy old captain who's on the last leg home who doesn't want to screw around with finding ballast.
 
It depends. If we have an EMB-145EP, then yes, it may be weight restricted to 47-49 customers. However, if you have an EMB-145LR or XR, then likely you can take 50 customers and a cockpit jumpseater. We have a much, much better weight and balance program than American Eagle. We have five zones, credits for galley carts, detailed cargo loading, and we don't often run into CG issues. I think our weight and balance program is one of the most labor intensive of any regional airline, yet also allows us to carry the most payload.

On BNA-IAH-TUS, I doubt you'll see anything other than an EMB-145LR or XR. I think the only time you might see an issue is if the weather is very bad in IAH (low visibility or thunderstorms) and the dispatcher has put a lot of extra fuel on top of an alternate.
 
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