Last week I was on vacation, I went to my daughter's graduation. The week before that I was off. The week before that I flew a 29:20 five day ATL-Dubai trip, one leg over, one leg back, 48 hour layover. The week before that I did the same. Next week I'm doing it again. And in two weeks, again. And again some more, into July.

Our bidding system limits the amount you can be initially scheduled in the bid awards to somewhere between 67 and 82 hours. For most of our 777 trips that means two and a half 4, 5 or 6 day trips per month, with the other half trip spilling over to the next month to keep you below 82 for the month. That usually means working about 12-14 days per month.

There are a few longer trips worth more time, like the 6 day Sydney worth 38, two of those gets you 76 hours in 12 days, 4 of which you should not even show up if you live on the west coast, because they are scheduled as deadheads to/from LAX-ATL to get into possition to fly LAX-SYD. I did 3 of those in January-Feb.

The really senior guys usually bid the 3 day ATL-Tokyo trip, worth 27:00, three per month=81 hours for 9 days of "work". But think about this, each of those 3 day trips has a 24hr. layover in NRT...so really you are only 'working' (flying) 2 of the 3 days.

And since it's over 12 hours both ways, there are 4 pilots, (two Capt.s, two F/O's) so you are going to be in the bunk -half- the flight, both ways...so...really, on that 3 day trip, you are actually "working" only about 1 day. The other time you are in the bunk or on the layover. So, if you can hold it, seniority wise, you are really only working 3 days per month, for 81 hours. That's what I used to tell my MD-88 buddies. And that's why it's senior. I flew it for two years straight when I was a senior F/O on the MD-11, 13 years ago. If I never drink another Asahi I'll be happy.

The Junior guys have to fly to Lagos every week and risk bodily harm or malaria, that's why it's junior.

The 747 guys fly a lot of longer trips, 10-14 days, starting in DTW they go to NRT and then in and out of Tokyo to all over Asia. Those longer trips pay more time so they only do 1 or 1 1/2 trip per month. I don't like to be away from home more than about 5 days at a shot so even though they just built some 10 day trips for the 777, (ATL-NRT-LAX-HND-LAX-HND-dh to NRT-ATL) I won't bid them. I'll be going back to Dubai or Joburg or Tel Aviv or Sydney instead.

What "light" do you want shed on a recent trip? You want to know where the best bars are in Sydney? Or the cheapest hookers in Singapore? Or both?