Comair commuting

[cgflyer]

Comair floks,

I am interested in Comair, but am concerned about commuting. My wife won't let me move so it looks as if I would be commuting from ORF (Norfolk) to CVG. How tough would this commute be and what kind of schedule? ie. leave the night before and lose days off or is it possible to fly in and go to work on the same day? My goal, of course, is to maximize time in ORF with my wife and 3 little ones.

I have family about 40 miles from CVG, is that close enough for reserve?

thanks for the help,

cgflyer

 

[RichO]

From my understanding, Comair has a pretty good commuting policy. I believe as long as your listed on at least two flights to get to Cinn. but you don't make it on either flight, your covered. So it seems that commuting might not be too bad... Of course I don't know how it would be out of Norfolk.....

 

[NEDude]

From my understanding however, if you do not make the trip, even though you will not get fired, you also will not get paid for it. So using that safety net too much could cost you a lot of money.

 

[Anaconda]

well, having spent the past few months on reserve i can tell you that if you want to spend the greatest amount of time with your family you should move them to CVG. however, i'm sure you know that already. i guess that's not an option for you...

the explanations of the commuter policy are correct, but there are a few additional minor details that were not mentioned, but i won't get into here.

expect to spend six months or more on reserve. reserve and it's associated schedule has been covered in detail on this board, suggest you do a search on it.

most likely you will have to go up the night before your reserve window or ready reserve period ends. so, you waste half a day or more of your time off doing that. the same thing might happen on the back end of your schedule.

when you are on reserve you are assigned a "window" that can be up to 14 hours long during which you are available. you might have the window that starts at 0600 for instance. so you would have to be there before 0600, looking at the flight schedule you would have to leave by 1720 for the first flight. get the picture?

you only get 11 days off a month on reserve (and cd lines) and four of those days can be moved by the company. so, worst case, you might only make it home six or seven days in a month.

alternatively, you could move to the CVG area, and be home to watch your kids grow up almost every single day...

as for your pad 40 miles away, well, i'm not really sure. i've heard it can take up to an hour to get from the parking lot to check in, leaving you only 30 mins to get ready, dressed, packed, etc. so i would be skeptical that you could make it.

anyway, i hope this is giving you a picture of life on reserve. let us know if you have any more questions.

 

[Chump]

It usually only takes 15-25 minutes to check-in from the time you get in the employee parking lot depending on how lucky you are in catching the bus. When I was on reserve I stayed at relatives who were a hour drive from the airport and was never late. When they notify you on the pager, you have 15 minutes to call them back and 90 minutes from when you call them back to check in. I would use that the 15 minutes to get dressed and start driving towards the airport. The only time that doing this would be a problem is if the roads are bad in the winter. If your in a real bind, you can park in short term parking($11/day) where it it only takes 5 minutes to get to a computer to check in. Not a good option but better than being late.

Now you can immediately see what trip they have assigned you using the internet. If it's not a 90 minute call out, relax and give them a call back. Good Luck!!

 

[Anaconda]

it's good to hear that check-in is not as long as i had heard it being...it may have been a short bubble after 911 or something, i'm not sure...

 

[skydiverdriver]

I dont' commute, but I know a lot of people who do. My suggestion would be to go to delta.com and look up the flight schedules for Norfolk. I personally don't know anyone who commutes out of there, but we do fly there, and that helps. You could probably commute out of just about anywhere, if you are willing to take the time to get here. We have pilots who live in Phoenix and Los Angeles that commute to work.

Also, be aware that flight schedules do change. Some flights have changed over to ACA flights, and they have a few less seats. Hope this helps you.

 

[Pacemaker]

Hey CGFlyer,

I take it that you are down in LizCity, I am a Comair pilot commuting out of ORF. I have been there since Sept ?01, I am a Midway refugee. The ride out of ORF is pretty good, there are 4 Comair RJs and 1 Delta 757 a day. I know of 4 Comair guys commuting including me, I think that there are some Delta guy also but I don?t know how many. I end up on the jumpseat on the RJ about half of the time going to CVG. The 757 in the morning and the RJ at 8pm are usually wide open. The RJ in the morning from CVG is usually open too. On reserve I was getting about 10-8 nights at home. Comair can give you one day off which sucks for commuting. After about 4 months I was getting continuous duty overnights, which gave me 17-18 nights at home. The last two months have been regular lines and I have been home 13 nights. I have a crash pad in CVG and I am there about 4-6 nights a month now.

I hope that helps you some.

 

[Anaconda]

pacemaker...do you find you make more $$$ on a regular line than the high-speed line?

in talking to one of our project managers recently he mentioned that some midway guys were dismayed about that lack of equipment on our crj's...did you have something at midway on your planes that we don't (e.g., dual fms, acars, etc)?

thanks,

anaconda

 

[cgflyer]

Thanks to all of you for the great information. It is so nice to have a forum like this to explore possibilities.

Pacemaker, yes I am down in the swamp flying herks on the pointy end of the Coast Guard's spear, but only for 3.5 more months! Looking forward to joining the ranks of you pro's in the real world soon.

fly safe,

cgflyer