Originally Posted by
Shammy
When you say commute from Europe, do you mean they fly for example from where they live in say London, to New York, then start working on their flight from JFK to wherever,.....then spend their days off traveling back home?
Or they fly from where they live in Europe?
Basically every trip will start and end in the U.S. Some will start with a deadhead but I would think those trips are very much in the minority. Most people that I've talked to that commute from overseas try to group their trips together in close succession then group a bunch of days off so they're only commuting a handful of times a month rather than before and after each trip. Also keep in mind that at least at Delta it's very probable that you will start on a domestic-only narrowbody like the 737 or A220, so you'll have to do that for a couple of years minimum before you can even sniff some international flying. And of course even at that point you'll be on reserve quite a bit and I really don't think even with a 12 hour call out you'll be able to be in Europe for any of that.
The good news about reserve at Delta is with a little seniority you can group the entirety of your reserve obligation into one long stretch, again minimizing the times you'd need to commute.