RON in your own bed at SWA?

[intel33]

A question for all y'all already on board at SWA.

For any of you that commute from a SWA city. Do you ever manage to RON at your home. I assume that all trips begin and end at the pilot bases, but was curious if you could ever make it home while "on the road".

 

[Snoopy58]

Guys do it all the time. Main limitation is how often you can get trips that overnight in your city. Some cities with huge commuter populations (SAT, LAS) will even have trips on the giveaway board that start or end there -- i.e. you live in LAS and you giveaway the part of the trip after the overnight... trip for you ends at home, and for somebody else they start at home.

Very common.

 

[SWA/FO]

All the time brother.

 

[AlbieF15]

I thought the goal of most airline pilots was to end up in someone ELSE'S bed!

At least that what my pax buddies all told me--free booze, women love you, and hotels practically pay you to eat there.

Night freight, on the other hand....

 

[intel33]

That's good to hear! I live in ABQ and figure PHX would be the obvious choice for domicle. I know there are getting to be quite a few SWA guys in the area. Several that I know have chosen other domiciles, though.

Now all I need is that call from the PD.

Come on phone, RING!

Adios.

 

[Flycatcher99]

Are there SWA schedules that have out-and-back trips? In other words, start and end the same day in your base?

 

[Snoopy58]

Are there SWA schedules that have out-and-back trips? In other words, start and end the same day in your base?

Yes, but there aren't all that many of them, and they go very senior. Perhaps one or two lines in a base each month with nothing but 1-day trips, plus other lines with some longer trips and a few single day trips on the front or back (i.e. a "4-day light" -- a 3-day plus a turn). If you have room in your schedule, you can pick up some trips or pieces of trips like that, but it'll be VERY hard to build a month without some number of overnights away.

 

[SWA GUY]

It's true there are not all that many "Day trips", but there are lots of broken trips.

I consider a broken trip on that has been divided from it's original 2, 3 or 4 day by a line holder, and put into giveaway.

Also there are many day trips in Daily Open Time, at least there is in HOU.

It'd be tough to make a month of flying out of daytrips though...

 

[CKlimko]

If possible could you post what a typical month of flying would look like at Southwest? 4, 4 day trips, same line for the entire month, mix of 2, 3, 4 day trips that are different for the month, a couple of day trips per week for a month? Just curious how they're schedules look compared to a friend of the family that is with United.

Thanks.

 

[SWA GUY]

klimco,

I don't know what others do, so what I do is probably not a reflection of what is done by most.

I just bid a PM(afternoon-night flying) line, and usually get 3 on 4 off.

As soon as the bid awards are out I put some of the stuff I don't want up for giveaway, and take from others what I want.

Then on the 27th I line improve/trip trade so that my schedule is more flexible for picking up day trips and/or a two day.

My goal is to get up to about 115-120 trips and fly no more than 75 hours. Sometimes I get close, sometimes it works, and sometimes I end up flying 80 hours for 115~ trips for pay.

As long as I get my 15 days off I'm happy.

Obviously others do things differently, and they are happy to do it their way.

 

[intel33]

Are certain destinations only serviced by certain domiciles. In other words if a pilot was based, say in OAK, would he eventually fly to every city SWA goes to or not? I remember when I got my type that my sim instructor said he liked being based in PHX because it meant never having to deal with Midwest thunderstorms.

What about RONs? Does it make a difference if you fly AMs or PMs as to which cities you RON at.

Thanks

Intel33

 

[Snoopy58]

intel,

There are a couple of cities that are only served by specific bases, but mostly you'll see about the whole system within a year or two from about any base. The strange exceptions are SNA, which has a bizarre noise abatement departure, which is flown only by OAK crews (though everybody is qualified for it), and IAH & CRP, which are pretty much only seen by DAL & HOU crews, mainly because of the -200 currency issue. Texas based crews see a lot MORE of MAF, LBB, AMA, etc, and OAK crews may get more familiar with LAX, BUR, ONT, & SJC, SMF, SEA etc than BWI or MDW or MCO crews do, but most guys will see about all the cities before too long.

From month to month, there ARE some cities that some bases tend to see more than others, and some less than others. Not necessarily based on hard rules, just "the way things happen." For instance, I've seen a lot of MHT and very little ORF at my current base, though at another base & another time, ORF was fairly common, and MHT less so. With some digging into the bid packets, you can start to see trends about which bases have the lion's share of overnights at each city, but that can & does change over time.

Sometimes you'll hear guys comparing notes about "flavor of the month," how neither one had seen some city for about 6 months, and now both guys have a couple RONs there next month. Just the way the schedule planning shakes out.

Some cities get so much traffic that about everybody gets to see them fairly frequently, and with the traffic thru MCI, MDW, and STL, I don't know that I'd say that anybody can predictably avoid Midwest summer thunderstorms, regardless of base. Unless you bid to always stay out west, which may be an option with higher seniority.

Every city has an equal number of AM and PM crews RON... AM crew originates the jet & flies it, another crew drops off the jet to the PM crew starting their day then heads to the hotel, and another PM crew terminates the jet that one of the AM crews will originate the next day. Rarely (usually Saturday with its curtailed schedule) you can terminate a jet at the end of your day & then originate a jet the next day, but not usually. If there are any patterns like "AM crews in OMA are mostly from BWI, but PM crews there are mostly from MCO" I've never noticed it. On most hotel sign-in sheets, you generally see several bases represented.

That all make sense?