MikeB525

This thought came up when I was talking with a friend today: Why has there always been a tradition of having crews layover at a place away from their base? This is one of the biggest complaints amongst pilots.

So why is it done? Why are pilot schedules designed to have layovers? If you think about it, it costs the airline ALOT of money in hotel costs. To layover a 737 crew you need to rent 5 hotel rooms. If crew schedules were to focus more on day trips and minimize schedules requiring overnights, wouldn't it then be a win-win for both the crews and the company (flightcrew get more nights at home, company saves a ton of money on hotel costs)?

so....?

crjav8er

You need to have a crew to depart the early morning flight.

Thedude

Buying hotel rooms is much cheaper than flying the a/c back to base empty

av8r4aa

Because one day trips (turn arounds) are for OLD people.
Only the grey beards do them so they can be home for dinner.

Personally I like hotels.

I like to jump on the bed .

Plus in the hot summer months I see just how damn
cold I can make in the room.

VegasBoy

You get the last flight in. The proverbial business man wants to have meeting all day and still make it home late night and then the alternate proverbial business man wants to depart early am to make it to a hub for another flight or meeting by the 9-10am timeframe. Hence overnights. Every airline has daytrips, though. If the out time is 3 and 1/2 and back is 4 hours, you've got a fairly productive day trip so you then get to spend some quality R & R in a bunk bed crashpad in EWR with 7 snoring dudes.

Some cargo airlines, you have to wait for the plane to come back around the world for you. You fly Dubai Hong Kong and then it takes a couple of days for the airplane you'll be flying to get back around for you to do the HKG-ANC-IND/JFK/wherever.

Ottopilot

You are only allowed to be scheduled for 8 hours of flying in a day. Fly from New York to Los Angeles in 6 hours. Now you have to stay, the flight back is 5 hours. 11 is more than 8. I fly 8 hour international legs. You get a 24 hour layover while you wait for your plane to get back. I sleep, eat, workout, and see the local sights. A paid vacation.

SWAcapt

And if you really think about it, ten rooms are required for a 737 overnight. The a.m. crew checcked in around 2:00pm and thr p.m. crew arrivives around midnight. We currently buy 230 rooms per night in LAS to cover our 23 terminating aircraft.

Skygirl

[QUOTE=VegasBoy;60636]You get the last flight in. The proverbial business man wants to have meeting all day and still make it home late night and then the alternate proverbial business man wants to depart early am to make it to a hub for another flight or meeting by the 9-10am timeframe. Hence overnights. QUOTE]

Sometimes the proverbial business woman wants the above as well, and sometimes she just wants to stay in the city she's in and play, especially if she likes the city. I didn't realize that us business travelers had so much power over the scheduling, but that makes sense, which reminds me I have to get off here and go pack to go to Seattle. Sorry, about that 8:30 AM flight tomorrow, I don't get too excited about being at the airport by 6:30 AM either. For those AM flights, thank God for hotels next to the airport the night before, or I'd never make those flights.

1Seat 1Engine

Because after flying all day the last thing you want to do is deadhead back home so that you can fly again tomorrow?

Sit down with a pencil and build a real schedule...it will become obvious that you can't run an airline without layovers.

B757200ER

At least we don't have to re-fuel inflight, eh?