EngineFailure

the base I want is pretty senior and I don't want to commute,

so I'm planning on just choosing MSP (which was junior for like at least the past 8 months I believe) and moving there.

Will I be able to quickly get the line in MSP CRJ?

what are the routes like?

Is there airport reserve?

Any pros and cons?

Thanks!

AlikesitR

I left in December. The base was shrinking rapidly. When I first came on to the line at Skywest there were 106 lines. In the month I left (December) there were 50. The ERJ has taken a lot of the CRJ flying. I know people who sat reserve for quite some time and never flew. If you plan on moving to MSP, fly the CRJ for a bit then hop over to Terminal 2.

aviator1998

MSP is the worst flying in the entire system. We lose flying to the ERJ every single month, you'll rarely see a day that pays over MDG, same couple of overnights, you'll be on reserve for at least 5 months with the shrinking lines. The only upside of MSP is the crews are great, but literally - that's it. Everything else sucks. Save yourself a lot of time and seniority, park terminal 2 and fly terminal 2

bradthepilot

Nothing wrong with parking at T2, at all. At the same time if the OP is coming from a non-jet/non-121 environment, jumping right into a tide pod livery 737 in a non-AQP environment might not be the best entry point into the airline world. Everyone's situation is unique.


To the OP - since everyone's situation is unique, I'll say I really like the MSP flying. I know the ground crews at a bunch of the outstate stations, and I think it's cool to fly into tiny airports as well as larger ones like ATL, DEN, DFW, DTW, LAX, SFO, etc all of which I've done in the last three months on awarded trips. I don't like long multi-hour legs, so I bid to avoid them but that means more legs per day which doesn't really bother me. The chief pilot is very supportive, and the flying will be increasing (see Cirium etc. for the actual # of departures) over the next few months. The downsides to MSP are that you have to actively try to fly outside the local system - it won't just "happen"; you have to actively bid to do it (you can always pick up out of base, but that commute is then on you) along with the CA imbalance. The CA/FO imbalance means that FOs on reserve don't fly as much - the same amount of flying being spread amongst a larger number of FOs means that each FO gets less flying (that's not SkyWest specific though it is acutely felt here). Finally, if you want to build time, you'll need to be senior enough to avoid the standups/CDOs. They go senior on the CA side, but not nearly as many FOs prefer them and so many go extremely junior.


Airport ready reserve exists, but it's usually tacked onto the end of a trip or stuffed into the middle somewhere. Either way it counts towards breaking guarantee. Standalone ready assignments aren't a thing any more.

EngineFailure

Does this mean that if I want to fly, I should bid for flying outside the base correct? I heard many MSP pilots come to DFW and ATL to fly. But these flights they wanted to fly outside of base, not being forced to commute and fly these?

bradthepilot

You'd need to be senior enough to hold that trip, but yes. There are a few pilots senior enough to hold a line but choose to bid reserve instead so as to work less. And any trip that is awarded starts/ends in the domicile (MSP in this case). They either flow through gateway cities or start/end with a deadhead; in neither case do you need to find your own way there from MSP. If you pick up a trip from open time out of another base, then it's on you to get there on your own. Sometimes you can negotiate with crew support to get them to positive space you to/from the trip if they need help badly enough, but it's not a for-sure thing (I'm batting about 0.500 on doing so).

AlikesitR

You cannot necessarily bid for flying "outside of the base." You just have to hope to be senior enough to hold trips in the bid package which flow to other bases. Delta has historically had their pairings be "out and backs"" with flow to one other base where you do your turns. United and American seem to prefer letting their crews flow/bounce around touching multiple bases per pairings (ie if you made it to Denver you were almost for sure heading to the West Coast.) My basic understanding is the Delta method means bad weather in one base doesn't affect others as much whereas when trips bounce around base to base, while there may be more efficiency, there are also more variables at play. That run-on sentence aside, the CRJ 900 flying in MSP is not terrible. At least it used to not be. A big detractor for the flow to other bases that we do is our trips tended to flow over to Detroit and then you would go back to the same overnights as MSP, just from DTW. As Atlanta grew as a base, we started to flow down there more and that unlocked a whole bunch of new overnights that were a bit more interesting. The 200 flying is admittedly soul crushing. I have had trips where I went multiple days where I did not leave Minnesota. Delta does not stretch their 200 nearly as far as United, so the flying is lesser. But with the Deuces impending death for Delta, maybe it wont be a problem for you. In general you will l rarely go to the glamorous places in the network. Senior guys can hold some cool stuff, but below are two samples of what could be considered a good 4 day vs a bad 4 day on the CRJ. The Minneapolis base though had some fantastic crews, great people at outstations, and its honestly a good place to be based. I am no longer there, but there are times when I miss the people I flew with and the friends I made in the terminal.

Scenario 1: Good pairing I once had:

MSP-STL-MSP-FWA
FWA-ATL-SBN
TRI-ATL-CHA-ATL-FWA
FWA-MSP-RST-MSP

Scenario 2: Soul Crushing Pairing on the 200

MSP-ABR-MSP-IMT-DTW
DTW-PLN-APN-DTW
DTW-PLN-APN-DTW-PLN-APN-DTW
DTW-IMT-RHI-MSP-ABR-MSP

As a side note for Brad, the tide pods are now AQP and the training is relaxed compared to OO initial. They do make some definite assumptions that you have 121 experience so I would continue to advise people to wait till you have some time in the CRJ before hopping over.

trip

The only way you can get flying that starts and ends in another domicile is to
1) pick it up on your days off.
2) call CS and ask to swap your trip for a trip in another domicile, results will vary based on company need and reserve levels, often denied.
3) bid reserve, ask to sit reserve out of base.
4)seniority, bid min credit, give awarded flying away/drop, pick up flying in other domicile.

bradthepilot

Yep. I'd add that a number of trips in MSP and elsewhere start/end with deadheads to other bases; they are essentially trips for other bases you can bid for in-base, so that's another way to get flying in other bases as the OP was asking about even though it's technically "in base".

bradthepilot

Cool - good to know. Thanks!