August Schedule
August was my last month based in EWR. I had a pretty decent line with 70 hours of block time, 90 hours of credit and 15 days off. Also snagged another 18 hour CLT overnight
Hello. First of all thank you for all your informative posts. It it great reading them.
I recently received a CJO from UA, and I wanted to asn your advice on commuting.
I live in Virginia Beach, and I would like to bid for a Washington base. Driving distance is 3.5 hours on a good day. There are of course flights, but I am thinking worst case scenario.
I saw feom yor schedule that you are able to get several days off together.
Is it doable to bid/request for short call reserve days one after the other so that I could group days off to go home?
I know how much better QOL I would have if I lived in base, but my family enjoys the proximity to the beach and my kids are happy with the school they go to.
Do you think I will be able to have a reasonable QOL commuting?
Thank you for your help.
Cheers,
Alex
You probably wont get DCA base right out of training. The bases that have been recently available to new hires are EWR, IAH, SFO… so you may have a longer commute to start. I did a summer in EWR before getting DC based. I plan based off flights knowing there’s always a time I could drive if I had to.
Reserve has a lot of flexibility if you’re willing to be in the drivers seat. You can pick up short calls and field standbys and stack them up to reduce the likelihood of you getting called later in the silo, however it can happen. Make sure you always have a plan to get back to base within 12 hours if converted again. With the new contract reserve rules are getting better with 14, 16 and even 18 hours notice of assignments this Aug 2024, definitely something that helps commuters.
