FTv3

Sorry OP, I just assumed you had EU citizenship. If you don’t hold a EU passport the only easy and practical option is to enter Germany on a visitor visa. There might be options for up to 6 months or longer at a time and all you’d have to do is exit and re-Enter at the end of it. Same for the family if applicable. That part is easy. Things will start to get problematic when you try to open bank accounts, rent a place (security deposits/monthly payments), setting up utilities, cell phone bills, kids schools, buying a car and registering it/ ins, etc. Based on the limited research I’ve done, I think the simplest way is to buy property over there as a vacation home. It helps with a bunch of the issues above and may give you rights to longer stays (but beware of non-citizen residency issues). Expat forums and expat retirement forums, country specific, have lots of good info and highlight things you may not think of. Otherwise, perhaps you could try for some sort of work visa or even one through your spouse?? Any extended family living over there? You could go through them for solutions to a lot of these issues.

If you are already over there and have established a little seniority built up, your best bet for trips by far would be on the Z. There aren’t that many Z trips with DH/CML to and from Europe (which obviously goes senior) but lots of intra Europe flying with weekends off in CGN and lots of CGN stuff in general. I haven’t kept close tabs on it but the whale is flying through CGN more and more taking over the old MD stuff but then you have the ANC commute to factor in. The MD probably won’t be much of a CGN player by the time you get here. If you can’t hold any of the above you could bid a domestic fleet and just commute. Not too terrible if you live close to CGN. It’s really a question of seniority at the end of the day.

Per previous post, you can drop UPS health bennies if you can prove you are otherwise covered.