Originally Posted by FTv3

The 76 does the work horse flying in Asia and Europe - meaning the shorter, multi leg hub type flying covering regional areas in respective theaters. To get crews to/from those airplanes in theater, they have to DH or CML (paid tix) people around.

The 74 is the trunk route plane, long hauler, however you want to think of it. Much less DH/CML into or out of position than the Z because of this.

There are limited exceptions to both.

Trips between fleets are different because of the type of flying they do. On Z you’ll DH into theater then do hub flying during the week, most of the weekend off, then second week of hub flying before DH’ing back home. Thus, 2 week trips very common. Eg. Monday start with DH to PHL. Tuesday PHL CDG CGN. Now flying nights in Europe (afternoons on us time) Thur night CGN STN, Fri STN CGN MAD, Fri night MAD CGN weekend layover. Following week start Sunday night (Mon am): CGN-MAD, day l/o, then MAD CGN-BCN VLC l/o (day). Same hub stuff next few days laying over in BCN, BUD and CGN Thursday night. Fri night head home time, leave CGN 2am - STN PHL (DH or operate) landing around 8am. CML home whenever you want. Lots of 15hr layovers during trip. Note: you stayed on US day time zone most of your trip

74 is long strings of around the world trips like (SDF HNL HGK DXB CGN SDF) that can be anywhere from 8-14 days long. They have ocean loops: SDF HNL SYD ICN ANC SDF or out and backs: ANC ICN SZX ICN ANC or SDF CGN DXB CGN SDF. Lots of 24hr l/o’s causing continuous circadian flipping. I found Z way less fatiguing than 74 but you work a heck of a lot harder.

Anyway, on Z you are often DH/CML’d into/out of position to get to the flying because it’s the 74 crossing the oceans. The Z tends to have longer trips keeping you in theater while the whale has a lot of variety in trip length (less desirable for commuters…?). It takes 2 days to DH to/from Asia so Z guys can deviate and get a couple more days at home making those trips only 11-12 days = even more palatable.

Schzing! There’s UPS intl flying in a nutshell.