Commuting: Lost the Edge?

We will have to see.

I'm kind of in the middle of that 'career squeeze'. Nowhere to run! :)

I seriously think the only option is to bid king with a line. Being a line holder and growing tired of the rigors of commuting would be ten fold worse to reserve.
 
You're not allowed to bail on JFK right when I start flying out of there. :)


To those saying "Just move," it's not as easy as just saying "We're moving" even if the company pays for all of it, especially in THIS housing market. Trust me, I'm trying my damndest just to sell my "starter house" in Memphis so I can get a loan for a "medium house" in Orlando.
 
Doug Taylor said:
It is SO nice coming to an aircraft, mostly free of MEL's, ETOPS-ready and having a nap, two meals and not having to yammer on the radio every 120 seconds changing frequencies and reporting "Southernjets forty-one ninah-three got dat traffic on da fish finder" every five minutes.
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There will be no whining when you give it up willingly. :)
 
Alas, I am not the one doing the commuting, but on the other end of it. I do have to say - there is a HUGE difference between doing a trans-con commute and doing a quick hop. SLC-EWR was a hundred times worse than the dtw-ord commute that John is doing now.

So, if you have a way to shorten your commute, whether it's staying where you want in phx and going to SLC or LAX or staying JFK and moving to DTW or ORD I think that would be the way to go.
 
I commuted for 5 years, with the first year being a 2-3 leg commute to an outstation and the next 4 years a 1 leg commute between major cities. Even though the latter was an improvement on the former, they both sucked. I just completed my first month living in base and I'll be damned if my teeth aren't whiter, my hair thicker, and my complexion more vibrant. My life is much better now.
 
Doug you should just move to Nashville! The city is awesome and so is the country, not just the music... No matter what you want to do, white water rafting, hiking, skiing or wake boarding on any lake of your choice, mountain or road biking... All with in a 2 hours drive. There is something like 8 or 9 online flights a day to ATL and worst case senario you have to make a 3.5 hour drive to ATL. Cost of living is dirt cheap too. Everytime I am going to or from work there is usually a Delta guy getting on the employee bus with me commuting to/from DTW or ATL, they all love it.


Ask around buddy, if you don't have anything tying you to PHX maybe a move is in order, if you guys consider let me know, I can hook you guys up with what ever you need if you want to look around here.
 
zmiller4 said:
Skiing and whitewater rafting within a 2hr drive of Nashville? Sure about that?
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I'm not sure about the 'any lake of your choice' part either....There are certainly lakes more than 2 hours away from Nashville. Lots of them. They're actually a fairly common thing.
 
Cav said:
The rafting would be on the Oconee River in North GA. Not so sure about the skiing.
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That's the Ocoee and it's in TN :). I grew up in Nashville and was a somewhat dedicated whitewater kayaker. The Ocoee is about a 3hr drive. There's *great* whitewater quite a bit closer, but none commercially rafted. The closest "skiing" is probably Paoli "Peaks" in southern Indiana, but that's a joke. Other than that there's Gatlinburg (horrible) and the western NC mountains, but those are a 4-5hrs away.

Nashville's a great city, but for skiing and whitewater rafting you've got to drive a ways.
 
zmiller4 said:
That's the Ocoee and it's in TN :). I grew up in Nashville and was a somewhat dedicated whitewater kayaker. The Ocoee is about a 3hr drive. There's *great* whitewater quite a bit closer, but none commercially rafted. The closest "skiing" is probably Paoli "Peaks" in southern Indiana, but that's a joke. Other than that there's Gatlinburg (horrible) and the western NC mountains, but those are a 4-5hrs away.

Nashville's a great city, but for skiing and whitewater rafting you've got to drive a ways.
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You knew what I meant! ;) You're correct, Nashville is a great city to live in. I lived there for 4 years...met my wife there actually.
 
MSP has your name all over it.
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Brr! Brrrrrr!

Bumblebee said:
I say again....Sacramento has a BILLION flights to all of the LAX Airports, and there is a nice 10 acre property right next to my mountain...I'm making a filet mignon roast tonight for 8, but have enough for 2 more ;)


...and the Lambic? Nectar from the Gods!
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You uh, wouldn't happen to have a room for rent, would you? (Very, very unrelated.)
 
bLizZuE said:
I'm kind of in the same spot, albeit slightly different plot line.

I'm at a point in my life where I have nothing keeping me anywhere. I could pretty much move anywhere and it would be as indifferent as anywhere else. How do you choose though? I can't possibly afford to live anywhere considering our hubs of ORD, NYC, LAX, MIA. I tried to live in DFW but I couldn't afford the rent on first year pay. So how do you pick a city to commute from? I would love to live at some outstation that has a few flights a day to the hub, around 1-2 hours of flying. Yet I get nervous that, at the drop of a hat, they could stop flying to said outstation. Then what?

If I were in your situation Doug I would probably move closer to the commute, but still commute. I also don't think you should jump ship from your ER just yet. I feel like we're about to see and feel lots of changes in the industry over the next two years, and you have worked so hard and waited so long if you jump ship now you might regret it. I think with all the retirements and hiring happening(pray fuel doesn't destroy this fantasy) there will hopefully be movement for everyone.

My generally worthless, .02.
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It's possible to live in DFW or at least within short callout distance on 1st year eagle pay. San Antonio is also pretty cheap and a nice place to live and theres many a super 80 flight between the two, just get used to sitting in the uncomfortable jumpseat. I managed it on Martinaire pay while paying my mortgage in San Antonio.... speaking of which, San Antonio is real nice.... wanna buy a house? :P
 
Doug - have you thought about SEA and just staying in PHX? With the ER schedules out there you would be down to one commute each direction per month. Gone more days in a row, but off more too... That being said, it is rainy. Don't think about moving there unless you are up for that.
 
I agree with Jtrain, keep your but in the 76 right seat if you can. The commute may be tough, but at least you don't do it too often.

Commuting has been pretty miserable lately - I do it too. And I'm on REVENUE full fare tickets, yet still have trouble getting to work. Loads are just ridiculous on a lot of routes right now. Oil prices may solve that for you anyway ;)
 
zmiller4 said:
Skiing and whitewater rafting within a 2hr drive of Nashville? Sure about that?
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Lots of big lakes... I meant water skiing, If you want to snow ski or snow board Gatlinburg is about a 3 hour drive and is pretty good for Eastcoast skiing. you can white water raft out east in the Mountains, just about 2 hours east on I40 or hit the occoee about 3 hours south in Georgia
 
Hey Doug,

I feel yer age 65/merger pain....

I was number 4 to upgrade on the -9 in MEM some THREE years ago. Crew planner said "pack your bags, Richman, you're going to upgrade training!"

Three days later, out of the blue, the age 65 thing happened. Didn't even see it coming.

So I sez "well, lets stick it out on the -9, and see what happens". Well, merger happens, and the first thing they do is park 30 DC-9s. Yippie. Time to park it on the 757.

I was one of those guys who always pitied commuters, and said I'd never commute, but life is funny sometimes, and I wound up making one of the worse commutes in the system (fNWA, that is) from FLA to DTW.

I no longer really have anything keeping me in SoFL, except for my GF. She is ADAMANT about not wanting to live in ATL, and I'd have to downbid 3 categories to do better than I'm doing now, so that's out. Besides, thanks to the merger fandango, I'm sitting 1,000 numbers junior to guys who were hired after me and are younger besides. Plus the old guys who promised to move on to greener pastures if we saved the pensions, didn't. They decided that being top of the list isn't so bad.

Sucks, but it is what it is. I've thought about changing bases, but the commute to DTW isn't that bad, seniority is relatively good, and local hotels are cheap and have minimum of bodily eminations on the comforter. I wish we had the old NWA Crew Control program where you could put all your commutes into your PC ahead of time and it would book them automatically, but you can't have everything.

Richman
 
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