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On a separate note. Living in base or at your military installation has its perks which is undeniable.

If your base or installation is where you want to live even if you were no longer in the military or working for an airline then that is the perfect scenario.

Can you answer the age old question(s):

1.) If you had a million dollars, what would you do with your life?

#Besides the Office Space answer

2.) If you had a million dollars, where would you live?

To fit our times let’s make it 10 million dollars...

Well done Sputnik! Glad to hear it rocks for you. We enjoyed Panama City, but somehow ventured out a year prior to Hurricane Michael in 2018 thankfully. Some of our friends still haven’t moved back into their homes who worked at Tyndall AFB and it’s still terrible there. Dodged that bullet.

 

 

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On 1/7/2020 at 8:05 PM, HossHarris said:

Or at least relatively close. Atlanta sucks. The panhandle of Florida is awesome and close enough. 

Agree!!  Atlanta sucks and I try to even fly through that place.  So far not successful avoiding it for training but maybe one day 🤣

 

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19 hours ago, Sneedro said:

Agree!!  Atlanta sucks and I try to even fly through that place.  So far not successful avoiding it for training but maybe one day 🤣

 

 

Eh, you can find good spots pretty much anywhere you go...hell, I even enjoyed living in Wichita Falls, TX.  While "avoid if any landing in ATL" is an integral part of my bidding strategy, I also know that VA ave does not represent the entire area.  I have a few buddies that swore they'd never live in "base housing," but have since moved there and absolutely love it.  If you're willing to take gigs like sim IP or duty pilot, you can make a shit ton of cash AND be home every night.  There are a few places I wouldn't mind moving to, but the idea of commuting just makes that unpalatable to me (full disclosure, I live 8 minutes to Guard, 45 minutes to my family and 60 minutes to the employee lot).  Others find commuting to be a non-issue to live where they want.  Being happy by living where your family wants is huge, but there is no denying that there is a real cost in $$$ and time at home with said family.  That's the beautiful part of this job, there is a little bit of something for everyone, you just have to decide if it's worth it to you.  My advice if you want to commute (to pax carriers) is to get on a WB as soon as you can hold a line and never look back.

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Just a friendly update, our most recent vacancy bid just came out and the most Junior Group 2 (737, A32x) Captain slot awarded was hired in May of 2017. And it's not an anomaly, the seniority ranges for the various positions dropped about 1,000 (out of 15,000) across the board.

In March I'll put together some info on how much I've made in the first two years with AA, and how much flying it took to get there. I probably work the system harder than most, but the year 3 plan is to make ~$185k while flying fewer than 500 hours actual stick time. 

Disclaimer: can't pull these numbers off as a commuter.

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Slight thread derail, For airline applications...availability date...should I put my palace chase date (palace chase NOT approved yet) or my solid end of ADSC date. 
hoping for 1 June PC and wanna get apps in ASAP!

soliciting opinions, I’ve heard multiple opinions on both dates from squadron bro’s. 
 

Edited by BashiChuni
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53 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

Slight thread derail, For airline applications...availability date...should I put my palace chase date (palace chase NOT approved yet) or my solid end of ADSC date. 
hoping for 1 June PC and wanna get apps in ASAP!

soliciting opinions, I’ve heard multiple opinions on both dates from squadron bro’s. 
 

I'd recommend putting the earliest date you can be reasonably assured you can be standing in the training center ready to start ground school. You want the earliest seniority number you can possibly get. It's highly unlikely that you'll be in a situation where both your gaining unit and your airline will all refuse to work with you on dates if a conflict arises after you're hired.

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Just a friendly update, our most recent vacancy bid just came out and the most Junior Group 2 (737, A32x) Captain slot awarded was hired in May of 2017. And it's not an anomaly, the seniority ranges for the various positions dropped about 1,000 (out of 15,000) across the board.
In March I'll put together some info on how much I've made in the first two years with AA, and how much flying it took to get there. I probably work the system harder than most, but the year 3 plan is to make ~$185k while flying fewer than 500 hours actual stick time. 
Disclaimer: can't pull these numbers off as a commuter.

Would love to hear that as well as your contrast with a commuter you may know. If that makes sense.
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8 hours ago, SocialD said:

 

Eh, you can find good spots pretty much anywhere you go...hell, I even enjoyed living in Wichita Falls, TX.  While "avoid if any landing in ATL" is an integral part of my bidding strategy, I also know that VA ave does not represent the entire area.  I have a few buddies that swore they'd never live in "base housing," but have since moved there and absolutely love it.  If you're willing to take gigs like sim IP or duty pilot, you can make a shit ton of cash AND be home every night.  There are a few places I wouldn't mind moving to, but the idea of commuting just makes that unpalatable to me (full disclosure, I live 8 minutes to Guard, 45 minutes to my family and 60 minutes to the employee lot).  Others find commuting to be a non-issue to live where they want.  Being happy by living where your family wants is huge, but there is no denying that there is a real cost in $$$ and time at home with said family.  That's the beautiful part of this job, there is a little bit of something for everyone, you just have to decide if it's worth it to you.  My advice if you want to commute (to pax carriers) is to get on a WB as soon as you can hold a line and never look back.

My comment was mostly in jest.  I will never speak bad about living in base no matter where it is...hell I live in NJ so I am in base in NY but it's not the most financially sound decision 😂  I do get to live in base though for airline and reserve gig so that's a double plus.  February I won't spend a single night in a hotel!  It's kind of a ball buster month but the family loves it.

 

What other job can you live anywhere in the world and be provided free transportation (well almost free) to work?!  

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3 hours ago, Guardian said:


Would love to hear that as well as your contrast with a commuter you may know. If that makes sense.

Hard to draw a comparison to a commuter as I'm participating in a rather niche strategy, but I can give an example of something I'm able to do that a commuter could not.

 

When we talk about pay at AA, we have something called PROJ, or credit. It includes hours flown, sick time, vacation time, training hours, time spent deadheading, etc. So when I have a 90 hour month, I am referring to credit, not actual hours flown. Now, short version, we have a contract provision that makes it so a trip must pay an average of 5:15 per day. So no matter how much you work, a two day trip must pay at least 10:30, a three day must pay at least 15:45, so on and so forth. The computer that builds trips does a good job making sure you fly at least those values, so they aren't giving you "free" money. 

 

However, when something goes wrong and they have to build a trip to fill uncovered legs (due to sick calls, weather events, broken planes, etc), they ignore the optimization aspect. So as an example, they might need to fill the 22:30 flight from DFW to OKC, which is 45 minutes. There's no way to get back home since that's the last night, so they will fly you back the next day (as a passenger). That's a two day trip, 45 minutes flying and 45 minutes deadheading, or 1:30 of work. But because of the contract, that trip must pay 10:30. 

I take my schedule every month and trade away the whole thing, down to zero. Then I sit around and wait for sequences like the above (though they are usually more like 2 hours out, overnight, and 2 hours back), and fly those for the month. This way I can get 50% or more of my PROJ/credit to be "soft" time that is contractual, instead of from actually flying. The catch is that I usually get the call for trips like that 3-6 hours before takeoff time, so commuting would preclude me from doing that. I actually fly less than some of our reserve pilots. and get paid more. I also choose the days off I want.

I'll have the income figures totaled in March.

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I’ll contrast as a delta commuter. 

Year 2/3 maddog
$136k pay, $14k PS, $23k DC, $5.5k per Diem and other stuff.  

$179k total.
360hrs of block.
60 nights on the road (not in my own bed). 

no strategies or gimmicks .... no premium or overtime flying  .... just absolute minimum effort. 
 

/bragging

Edited by HossHarris
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5 hours ago, HossHarris said:

360hrs of block.
60 nights on the road (not in my own bed). 

no strategies or gimmicks .... no premium or overtime flying  .... just absolute minimum effort. 

Reserve or trips with overnights at home?

Edited by SocialD
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6 hours ago, SocialD said:

Reserve or trips with overnights at home?

Yes!

3 months of reserve when we were overmanned a bit, any home layover >16hrs I coukd Scrounge (maybe 6-9 for the year), and general apathy. 
 

work less, not smarter nor harder 

Edited by HossHarris
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Short call reserve on the E190 at AA and live in base less than an hour away. The following numbers are mostly a WAG, but for the most part I only get tapped a few times a month. Usually fly 5-7 days with 2 or 3 nights away from home. Some are day turns. The occassional 4-day trip, but they are rare. Made about $70k with over 50 days of military leave for TDY's. I probably would have made about $82k without the military leave, but I made over $40k on the Guard side, so it worked out. I get every day off I bid for and was home for Thanksgiving and Chrismas last year. This year will be much better.

 

 

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37 minutes ago, Gazmo said:

Short call reserve on the E190 ...Made about $70k with over 50 days of military leave for TDY's. I probably would have made about $82k without the military leave

Holy crap, I had to go look up your 190 pay scale.  Didn't realize it was so much lower than everything else!

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Holy crap, I had to go look up your 190 pay scale.  Didn't realize it was so much lower than everything else!
Don't get me started. They are worse than Jet Blue's pay rates. Of course 1st year pay is the same for all, but year two stays the same as first year pay. Not sure WTF they were thinking. Needless to say, almost everyone 6 months out of INDOC is withheld from something else with a better pay scale. Ironically, some of the highest paid CA's in the company are in the E190. Other than that, I really don't have anything bad to say about the airplane and I have flown with a great bunch of CA's. Living in-base on Reserve on it has been pretty awesome.
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Don't get me started. They are worse than Jet Blue's pay rates.


Hey, hey...I’m right here. I can hear you.

190 is a great little jet. I’m a JetBlue 190 guy, I drive to the Guard and to the airport. One year in I’m at 50% seniority. Sometimes money isn’t everything. QoL.


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I only flew the line for a year before going on mil leave; and I've been gone for 4 years.  

 

HOWEVER, I commuted to NYC from Nola, held pretty much all international on the 767 that whole year and still flew Eagles in the Guard.  I will more than likely be a commuter my whole career because I don't want to live anywhere we have a base.  It's all what's important to you - I'll commute to wide body FO with good seniority when I go back next year.  Will I make more money than the guys in base?  Nope.  Will I be just as happy because I'm living where I want to live - YEP!  

 

Airline job is truly choose your own adventure; which is one thing I love about it.  

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On 1/16/2020 at 8:26 PM, Gazmo said:
On 1/16/2020 at 5:55 PM, nunya said:
Holy crap, I had to go look up your 190 pay scale.  Didn't realize it was so much lower than everything else!

Don't get me started. They are worse than Jet Blue's pay rates. Of course 1st year pay is the same for all, but year two stays the same as first year pay. Not sure WTF they were thinking. Needless to say, almost everyone 6 months out of INDOC is withheld from something else with a better pay scale. Ironically, some of the highest paid CA's in the company are in the E190. Other than that, I really don't have anything bad to say about the airplane and I have flown with a great bunch of CA's. Living in-base on Reserve on it has been pretty awesome.

Hey at least you’re higher than Moxy’s E195 and A220-300 rates. Holy hell. They make AA’s E190 rates look like WB rates in comparison. 112-155 and 128-180, respectively. That’s for the left seat.

Edited by pilot
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