Originally Posted by
crewdawg
Ya, I'm all for living wherever they want and where they're most happy. I think in situations like these, most just want the pilot to go in eyes wide open. I couldn't even stand the thought of doing a DTW-LGA o DTW-ORD commute, so I came to Delta when offered a job. Others don't mind commuting from across the globe. Biggest thing they'd need to look at is a no bs, accounting of home much time away from family this would cause. Include the occasional canceled flight or missed connection and more nights in hotels not getting paid, etc... I did it for an "easy" commute and the extra time away was staggering. If the OP is also weighing the the idea of moving to a base, it's worth accounting for all the extra time you can spend at home that living in base allows. But if the family decides it's still worth it, then great, enjoy it Europe. I've flown with a few guys who do it and they're as happy as can be. Of course one lived about 20 min from AMS and was a 330 pilot, so that's as good as it gets.
The problem with the internet forums is someone posts some thing "Hey, I commute from the Arctic to Antarctic and make it work, and it is an amazing quality of life, no taxes and all the Arctic penguins you can eat!". So people buy into it without really doing some important due diligence, and they find out that the person doing the commute has a very wealthy spouse that is Antarctic Royalty, so they really don't need to work and only commute twice during the Antarctic summer solstice, there are taxes, they're just called "compulsory environmental impact fees" and there aren't, in fact, any penguins in the Arctic.