commuting internationally

kellwolf said:
MCO to ATL looks easy on paper. There's a flight about every hour or so on Delta with 757s and 767s. They're always full with Delta mainline commuters ready to shank anyone that tries to snag "their" jumpseat. AirTran used to be a little bit better, but I don't know how it is since it's transitioned to the SWA side of things. MEM to DTW was a nightmare from what I heard because of all the displaced guys and gals plus DHs built into schedules.
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Florida to Atlanta, man, forget about that noise because it's apparently hellacious.

I did it my freshman year and it was wicked. If you weren't on the VRU at noon the first day you could book a jumpseat, it's gone baby gone. You've got pilots booking ATL-Florida jumpseats and half of the training department seems to prebook the MSP-ATL seats as well.

Now after the merger, the Florida to Detroit crowd largely transitioned Florida to Atlanta and it has become quite senior.
 
Yeah, forget that noise on FL commutes. Loads will look wide open, but when you get to the airport you're #200 on the standby list with the jumpseat reserved all day.
 
kellwolf said:
MCO to ATL looks easy on paper. There's a flight about every hour or so on Delta with 757s and 767s. They're always full with Delta mainline commuters ready to shank anyone that tries to snag "their" jumpseat. AirTran used to be a little bit better, but I don't know how it is since it's transitioned to the SWA side of things. MEM to DTW was a nightmare from what I heard because of all the displaced guys and gals plus DHs built into schedules.
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I have a buddy that flies for a certain United Ex operator who lives in Miami. He attempted to do MIA to IAD for one month then switched bases, you'd think there'd be a lot of flights but there's only 1 or 2 directs per day.

ATL? That's where non revs go to die! On a side note, I recently needed to get down to RSW for work (long story) and IIRC I arrived at ATL mid day and was literally the last guy on the last flight that left at 11pm that night. I'm pretty sure at least two of jam packed ATL-RSW flights I missed earlier were on the 757. Ridiculous.
 
ATL-MCO bad? That is what happens when an airline closes a base and no one moves to an open base but becomes commuters instead. It would be even worse if they closed the small satelite FA base there.
 
Cptnchia said:
ATL-MCO bad? That is what happens when an airline closes a base and no one moves to an open base but becomes commuters instead. It would be even worse if they closed the small satelite FA base there.
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DAL use to run an L-1011 on the ATL-MCO route at times.
 
I changed from ATL to DTW just to avoid the ATL commute from BNA. Longer commute, fewer flights, but I have not had to use the commuter clause once. Knock on wood.
 
Cptnchia said:
ATL-MCO bad? That is what happens when an airline closes a base and no one moves to an open base but becomes commuters instead. It would be even worse if they closed the small satelite FA base there.
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That's what happened when Pinnacle closed Memphis. So many guys were so entrenched in living there (or couldn't afford to move) that they turned nearly an entire base of pilots and FAs into commuters. Of the people based in MEM when it closed, I'd bet less than 20% of them were hopping on airplanes to get to work.
 
kellwolf said:
That's what happened when Pinnacle closed Memphis. So many guys were so entrenched in living there (or couldn't afford to move) that they turned nearly an entire base of pilots and FAs into commuters. Of the people based in MEM when it closed, I'd bet less than 20% of them were hopping on airplanes to get to work.
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I really advise against any regional pilot buying a house.
 
We have large numbers of guys who commute across the globe to HK. These include commuters from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia/NZ, and South Africa.

There's plenty of reasons they do it, all valid, and can argue that if they get a nice CX business lay-flat, then it's one comfy 15 hr sector from LAX, and arguably no worse than a domestic commute. That said, we don't have commuter clauses, our jets are always full, and it's still a lot of extra time spent away from your family, flicking through your kindle every month.

If I had to do it, because my wife insisted we live in the US, then I would manage, but if I'm going to commute across the Pacific, for my own sanity, we'd have to live within a short drive to a CX online port.

There are guys who have to catch 2 domestic flights before catching a long haul - I'm not sure I'm cut out for that.

With that said, there are lots of US base slots due to open up in the not too distant future, which will help a lot of guys out.
 
Hmm... At SkyWest, I've met two captains and one flight attendant who held my personal record for commuting: São Paulo, Helsinki, and Bankok. That last one is at least a two-leg commute.
 
We've got an MCO FA that commutes from Chile. Although, I think she only makes it home about once a month. I think she normally has to two leg it through Brazil and comes up on TAM.
 
At my old airline we had a few commuters coming in from Europe. I think partly they just liked saying they lived wherever, it was a conversation piece. Truth was they only got back maybe once or twice a month and really spent most of their time in the US.
 
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