SWA Bases for New Hires

[SWAnnabee]

# work days?

As a junior FO, how many days/month can you expect to be away from home. I saw a "virtual pilot" flight schedule on the Southwest Airlines website that showed a 15 day/month work schedule in 3 blocks of 4 day trips and one 3 day trip. Is this acurate? Seems that with that much time away from home you might as well join Cathay Pacific(sp?) and fly international for the big $$.
Just curious if this is accurate.

 

[falcon20]

UGA pilotdawg-
I commute out of msy, hired early 02, two months OAK, three months PHX, then hou. It could be much quicker if the hiring continues or the growth on the east coast continues as what we saw in the april vacancy bid.

 

[UGApilotDAWG]

thats good to hear that it took less than 6 months!
I know I am "on the bubble" for projected hiring this year...
It would be nice to get hired with enough people behind me to bid out before the next class freeze.
If not I guess I'll just keep swimming til' next year!

Keeping my optimistic fingers crossed...

Aloha,
Les

 

[UGApilotDAWG]

oh yeah Falcon I forgot to ask....

Are the lines you fly out of Oakland different from Phoenix different from Houston? I know SWA is point to point so I have heard you can still end up flying anywhere in the country no matter your primary domicile. Is that close to the mark? Or are the flights more regionalized? Just curious! The more nights spent below the Mason-Dixon line, the better! It's too hard to try to eat dinner without sweet tea!

Thanks,
Les

 

[Maynard]

Bases...

Right now, EVERYONE starts in OAK. Hope it changes for you, and most don't spend much time there (4 or 5 months depending on hiring). You'll get a hard line off of your list of choices initially (for the first month off of IOE), then a hard line in OAK for a month ( if it's still junior, which it will be), then seniority bids kick in, probably reserve in OAK, but FO reserves in OAK are all flying tons. PHX and HOU are next respectively right now, we'll see what happens with the changes in April. Good Luck...
ps. You'll fly pretty much all over, no matter where you are based, however, it is slightly regional at times. Hope that helps...

 

[MLBWINGBORN]

Captain bases in order of senority..

1 DAL
2 HOU
3 PHX
4 MCO
5 MDW
6 BWI
7 OAK

The difference between the numbers of BWI and OAK were only a total of six senority numbers..As BWI grows i would suspect that as a base it will become the most junior Captains base very soon and will remain so for some time do to the growth in the both the base as well as the traffic in the Northeast..

As for a new hire schedule..

The schedule you keep depends on many things..

As a new hire your lifestyle can be as poor as living on the east coast and being based in OAK with spending most of your days off trying to get to and from work to getting your first hard line off of reserve in base and being able to drop part or all of your trips and writing your own schedule out of open time..

One of the things that people dont talk much about is the quality of life you can create at SWA due to being able to swap trips,line improvement trip trade,pick up open time..give aways, ect ect..

You can work as hard or as little as you want..The paycheck gets alot smaller if you dont feel like working but you can still make that choice..

I cant really do justice to the system we have in this forum..But i can say that reserve can be tough and your time spent on reserve can vary alot depending on bases and hiring..

However..Once you are off reserve you can pretty much create your own schedule after a fashion and never have to call scheduling to get the changes approved..Just point and click..If its legal its done before you can get your finger off the mouse..

Trust me when i say that if you arnt good with a computer now you will be after a few months of being able to have a major impact on your lifestyle via the internet...

Mike

 

[MLBWINGBORN]

As for getting HOU straight out of the box..

Aint gonna happen..


Mike

 

[ivauir]

a question ...

I know PHX is pretty junior (for FOs), but would anyone care to wager a guess as to how many classes I'd need below me to get based there? How many does it generally take to hold a line?

Thanks!

 

[MLBWINGBORN]

uvauir..

Boy...Thats a tough one..
How that would or perhaps could happen can depend on so many things..

1 Class size and your senority in class..
2 Where you are in the wave of hiring...Last class for the year tends to get stuck..
3 What bases are increasing their staffing..ect ect..

Having said the above, i can say that ive seen a junior guy in class take three classes to get to PHX for a class that graduated in the middle of the hiring year to a senior guy in class going straight to PHX out of the school house that was in the first class of the year..

As for how long you may be on reserve..

Ive been on reserve for right at a year..
There are several reasons for this..Mostly its been due to my bidding to move to the next base closer to home..As i moved up in the bases i would end up on the bottom of the reserve lines again..
Plus we stopped hiring..If i had stayed at one of the more junior bases i would have been holding a line for many months..

PHX is a base that is known for the more senior guys bidding reserve and picking up open time...This is great for the junior guys as they are pushed up into the hard lines pretty quickly..Sorta like having artifical senority..

My sim partner has been holding a line in PHX after sitting reserve for a month and got it his second month on the line..

It all depends on movement and what part of the wave you are riding to the beach..

I hope this helps.

Mike

 

[canyonblue]

Year Anniversary tomorrow still on reserve in MDW. If only those dang BWI and MCO guys would leave MDW.