Originally Posted by InstantCoffee

Agree and disagree.

Did sort flying for a while and realized I did not want to end up like the walking dead in there; made a change in my bid strategy when I could.

Been holding AT and PA crossings on Z. Just got senior enough to hold 2-week trips in Europe. Cush, right? 4 leg nights most of both weeks with 12 hour layovers and a full circadian flip for the crossings on both ends of the trip is still tough. Not SDF/PHL/DFW night sort tough. But tough. Maybe there are better lines (fewer legs a night, longer layovers) that go more senior to me, but I doubt it. Find the trips with mostly crossings to allow more opportunities for exercise and to get out. Just fewer cities to do that, and not much to see around a lot of those hotels unless you take some kind of transport, which has been difficult until recently. Could get out in Europe more than Asia for the last couple of years. Now that Japan and Korea are both opening up, Asia (for crossings) might not be so bad. (General bid around China for the last 2.5 years and haven’t been or heard any reports yet about life under the looser restrictions in HKG and TPE, but suspect it’s a “my head feels better when I stop hitting it with a hammer” situation.) Probably going back to crossings just so there’s more time to get out and work out; those are indisputable elements of healthy(er) living regardless of the time of day one works. Maybe the longer trips on the Whale are more along the rhythm you suggest, but they have plenty of crap sandwiches hidden in their schedules too.

Being a “glass half empty” person, instead of saying “find your niche and be happy” I’d say “pick your scheduling poison, call FAT/ SIK when you are FAT/ SIK, and appreciate the features in the contract that allow you to enjoy your time off with the people you love (OCV, conflict bidding and pay) because we’re all going to die anyway, whether we fly on the front or back side of the clock.

All that to say: agree that domestic sort flying is probably the worst, but international isn’t necessarily that much better. Make intentional choices about managing your health. Find what schedule works for you, because if you don’t, you’ll burn out.

Also: Not a doctor or physiologist, so this opinion is worth what was paid for it.

Clearly the java hasn’t kicked in yet, but re-reading my post, think we are in violent agreement. To put the blame where it belongs, I’m clearly the one generating the violence. Sorry.

IC