Originally Posted by Adlerdriver

I don't know if anyone commutes consistently. I know one single person who kind of time shares between the US and Germany but does have a company provided residence over there. Also, no idea about movement and time to hold a line there.



Looking at the lines in CGN, they really don't look like they're set up to be commuter friendly. There are no single departure lines (i.e. one long trip you could commute to, fly, commute home and be done for the month). During the 4-week bid months (8 months a year), there are lines that work week-on/week-off, two trips per month. If you could hold those, that would probably be reasonable. Most of them are double deadhead trips, so they start and finish somewhere other than CGN (like Basel, Amsterdam, Budapest or Paris). So you would either have to get to CGN the day before the trip started and use the scheduled transportation to start the trip or commute straight to the city in question from DC.



Unfortunately, there are also lines with 3 or 4 trips more scattered around the month. Those really don't look commutable and you would probably end up dropping trips and/or trying to massage your schedule to make it work which may not be possible depending on manning and available trips.



The 5-week months (4 months a year) have a minimum of 3 trips. Some are just an extended version of the week-on/week-off above with an extra trip. The challenge might be meshing that month with the previous month. You might end up with two trips back to back (if they're legal that way) or some dead days in CGN before your next one starts. Again, there are also a number of lines without much of a "pattern" or too few days between trips to allow a commute home.



So, if you were able to get reasonably senior in CGN, I think a commute from the east coast would be okay for a while. Early on, especially to reserve, would be tough. My guess is you'd spend more time in CGN than you would at home on days off. It kind of depends on what sort of commute you're already used to and where your pain threshold lies.



If I was going to commute to a foreign domicile, I'd pick HKG. One ugly commute a month to a single departure line. Not perfect but probably less dead time in domicile and maybe less actual commute time compared to CGN.