Originally Posted by
plift
It depends on when your last scheduled operating flight is and whether it's finishing in your base. If you get back early on the last scheduled day you probably have time to get a flight home that day. On the front end of the schedule you can almost always plan on traveling on a day off if you use gateway. The company will only buy you a gateway ticket that gets you in place in time to have legal crew rest for your first scheduled flight. The time required for gateway travel is on top of your original awarded schedule. That's why a lot of commuters like the 17 day straight lines, they only have to commute once.
The exception to all this is if your first or last operating flights are not going through your base. Then your schedule is built to deadhead to/from your base within your original scheduled days and you can change your schedule to commercial directly to/from your home and never see your base.
For example, a lot of the CVG lines get back very early on the last Z day of the pattern so commute home is generally the same day. Most HSV patterns coming back from Europe get back later in the day making it harder (damn near impossible) to get a flight out that day. I prefer the shorter trips in CVG. In ANC the shorter trips would probably suck as you lose up to 4 days on the commute because of having to head up there twice. The age old wisdom of living in your base definitely applies here despite the convenience of gateway travel.