This thought came up when I was talking with a friend today: Why has there always been a tradition of having crews layover at a place away from their base? This is one of the biggest complaints amongst pilots.

So why is it done? Why are pilot schedules designed to have layovers? If you think about it, it costs the airline ALOT of money in hotel costs. To layover a 737 crew you need to rent 5 hotel rooms. If crew schedules were to focus more on day trips and minimize schedules requiring overnights, wouldn't it then be a win-win for both the crews and the company (flightcrew get more nights at home, company saves a ton of money on hotel costs)?

so....?