Commuting for life?

[alfajoyeux]

Originally Posted by FilleBelle

The health of my relationship is not jeopardized by my desire to live near my family. Neither Kevin nor I wants our relationship to exist in a vacuum. We want the support of church, friends, and most especially family. Kevin hasn't lived near his for a while and is therefore content to live near mine for now.

The purpose of this thread was neither to debate the pros and cons of living near family, nor to help me work out my living arrangements with Kevin. (If you want to do that, head over to the "Oh no...I'm an IDIOT" thread!) I was simply curious if living near base was a goal many senior pilots had.

I hate typing a reply and accidently deleting it! ARGHHHH! Here goes again....

we've always been base dwellers. We've been married for almost 16 years and dh commuted for about a year. There's neither a right or wrong choice, just what works best for each individual family. You never know what the future holds or what circumstances may arise to change our decision, but for right now and in the past, our choice is to live in base.

I'm trying to keep it short and answer your specific question. If you asked dh what his goal would be, it would be to live in base. But, that's also my choice too. It would have to be both partners' choice to make it work and for everyone to be happy.

Hope that helped!

Wanda

[Jenn]

on the light side....i wonder if my dh would commute from norway to the u.s. if i wanted to move back home??!! i must say there are some that do just that can you imagine?!

my dh hates commuting. we will be base chasers (although he will never have to change bases ) we both moved from dallas to st. louis when his base got changed. i didn't want him to commute and he didn't want to either. when we moved to norway, we were going to move up to northern norway to be near his mom and sisters family, but he didn't want to commute to oslo.

i guess what i'm saying for you is, if he's happy making you happy at this point...YAY!!

and to answer your question is i think pilots would live near their base IF it worked for them and their family. to most them though they've been doing it for so long that's just how it is.

good luck on making a decision. being married to a pilot has it's challenges in more ways than one, eh?

[amelia]

DH was a commuter for almost 2 years. He knew it would be a temp thing until he got based back here in Denver. He hated commuting. Its not his thing. He was really unhappy while he was commuting. He is a lot happier based here at home even though he is on reserve.

If DH ever moves on to a different airline, I have no clue what we will do. I guess it depends on who he works for and where he is based. We really love living here in CO. I have NO desire to move anytime soon. I would love it if he was willing to commute so we could stay here, but I guess we'll see. But, I'd also feel bad making him commute if he hates it so much and is unhappy.

[spotty4]

We will likely be commuters for life ... or at least for the foreseeable future. While I'm the bread winner and have the more stable job, we need to follow my work. Plus, while he's still w/ Mesaba and flying under the NWA label, we will need to wait out the DAL/NWA merger. We wouldn't want to move to one of NWA/Mesaba's bases knowing full well that they could close in the next 2 years or so.

[jr_lenz]

most likely we will commute for life too. We have a short commute one leg 1hr so its not horrible.

If it was a perfect life we would live where we were based. But I work and have kids, for us the money is in the 4 day trips. That leaves alot of gap that needs to be filled by someone. I can't say my first choice would be to live by my parents, but they are who fill that gap for us. they pick up kids from school, go on field trips, help make practice. take over when you have the flu. I don't have a job that I can leave at a moments notice and I need help, as long as I am still working we will commute, cause at this point even if we lived where we were based I don't think that we would get that much more time together, at least not enough to still make up for when he is gone.


but like Kristi said its also about quality of life, we love Idaho, and the way of life here. This is where we want to raise our family.

as far as other senior pilots. I think there are about 27+ pilots who commute out of boise. (thats what someone told us) and some are pretty senior, but this is where they want to live. I don't think there is a straight answer, it is going to vary for each person, everyone has different goals.

[SWAFOWIFE]

I agree...I think it really depends on the individual. My Dh is based in MCO but says he wouldn't live there (nothing against MCO, it's just not on the coast). As long as were in FL being on the coast is where we want to live. If the housing market were different we would maybe go south a bit to shorten his drive to work but that's not an option right now . His drive is only 2 hrs right now so it's not much more than the drive to JAX airport to commute which is 1 hour. DH has flown with a few senior CA's who live close by to us and for them it is where they are most happy when they are home for whatever reasons they have. DH mostly works 3 on 4 off, I will say the nice thing with in base is the out and back trips but we don't see many of those right now. For us, DH will probably be a car commuter for a while...fingers crossed...hopefully he can have MCO long term but who knows. If DH starts air commuting it will obviously play a big factor in time off at home. So for now we will enjoy MCO and not take it for granted. Good luck :-)

[trigeek]

Seems to be alot of commuters. However, DH and I represent the chasing metal crowd. After spending most of our dating years of living half a country seperate we are pretty dedicated to sticking with each other.

Personally, we took alot into consideration when we made our latest move. Are there enough job opportunities for me? How established is the airline in the city? For example, the fact that Skywest was investing big money into building a maintance hanger in the city was a very positive sign to us. How junior is the base? And will we enjoy the city?

My advise would be to look at least five years in the future. Thats enough time to establish friends, establish good employment for yourself, and not lose your butt on a house investment (or just rent). We don't try to plan much further ahead than that since airlines can be a bit volatile.

Lauren

[flyby0408]

when we we got married...we already lived in ft lauderdale ..and that was his base.however he did end up switching to jfk when we moved to merritt island, even though there is a base in orlando..but the trips there dont interest him..so he continues to commute..45 min drive to MCO then up to jfk, where he has a crash pad, he did the hotel thing for awhile..but now hes back doing the crash pad...we have no intention of moving anywhere, since our imediate family is in our state...and we truly love it here..eventually orlando will get better trips..and thats dh's goal to eventually be based here...he doesnt really complain about the commuting..i think hes so used to it by now..anyway, if he wanted to move elsewhere..i wouldnt have a problem with that, i actually look forward to new ventures..

good luck

[pilotwife38]

Dh may end up commuting for life. We do not like any of the SWA base options and the cost of living is very reasonable here. (Atlanta) It is a quality of life issue for us. SWA doesn't even fly into Atlanta. I know that sounds crazy but we have a decent number of flights (Delta and Airtran) and dh's commute isn't so bad. Commuting is commuting regardless of the airline. In fact it it easier to commute from Atlanta than many SWA cities due to the large number of flights.

Tonya

[Bigsweetie]

So far we've never chased metal and don't plan to.. but in the future, who knows.

When DH took his current job, here in DTW, it was just an added convenience... we didn't move here, and it wasn't the sole reason he took the job.

In the future, if his commute (if he has much of one) ever gets to be too much for him, we'll deal with that at that time. When he's commuted in the past, it was a pain - but he managed.

We both like living near our families. We're all very close and I wouldn't want my kids to miss out on that.

If DH was with a major and had seniority and was based in a city we thought might be fun to try living in - we'd talk about it as a family (with the girls) and decide if we wanted the adventure of living in another city. We wouldn't chase it for convenience unless DH was having a hard time with the commute.