Flaps50

Anyone new to International flying especially to Asia should keep in mind the International Date Line when deviating!

We recently had a purple nugget out of ANC not realize that his $2000.00 dollar oneway 1st class ticket that departed on said day in the USA landed him into Asia a day later on the calendar than he expected...Doh...

Needless to say he passed the crew at the hotel counter as they were heading to the airplane with a HKG hotel standby FO. Now he could be out the value of the trip and the deadhead ticket.

When I was told this story, I thought man that could have been me or anyone that spaced the IDL accidently. Just FYI.

USMCFDX

I always triple check the dates, arrival and departure, when on my own plan to Asia. Very easy to screw it up, even when you are aware.

Huck

I don't front-end deviate overseas. I've heard too many horror stories.

MD11Fr8Dog

I wonder if this guy deviated properly (other than the obvious). Hmmm, I guess he probably would have gotten called from CRS enroute wondering where he was! Checking in on the deviation is certainly an opportunity to count the hours and do the math and double check your travel plans. I've always rerun my calendar check when checking in initially on a deviation to see if my arrival gave me 12+hrs.

Huck

I'm flying with a captain this month - he deviated to Paris last month and the overseas leg got cancelled due to the big snowstorm. It was a hairy story, involving sprinting through both ORD and Heathrow, all coach seats, three legs to get there in time...... When it first fell apart he called scheduling and their response was "you're deviating. Good luck."

JetJocF14

" DITTO " Like to keep the ball in their court.........

Jetjok

It seems to me that the majority of guys who live in Memphis don't deviate, either on the front end, nor the back end of trips. When asked why, their response is almost always the same: "I always take the scheduled deadhead." I had a trip a number of years ago, when I was on the Bus, that deadheaded early in the morning, to ORD, then about 10 P.M., it operated back into MEM. I deviated, of course, and got to the airport hotel just prior to the 8 hour final check-in. At show time, I met the captain in the lobby, and asked him when he had gotten to the hotel. He said around 7 A.M. When I asked him why so early, he responded with that classic Memphis response, "I always take the scheduled deadhead." I asked him what time he had gotten up this morning to make that flight and he said around 4 A.M. When I asked him what he did all day, he said he had just stayed in his room. It didn't even phase him when I mentioned that there must be 20 flights a day from Memphis to Chicago.

Maybe I like to live dangerously, but I've never missed a check-in and have always gotten to where I needed to be, on time. You learn these things when you don't live in domicile. However, there was this deadhead to Mumbai, but that's a whole other story.

fr8rcaptain

Non-domicile standby is limited to eight days per pay period, including travel days to/from.

We don't have any hotel or airport HOT lines in Asia, but the 61 hour HKG layover built into my next trip would be suspicious IF I were in my hotel instead of walking down HONG KONG Disney Main Street....(can't hear my phone ringing from that distance)

ptarmigan

Another thing that can help protect you is to send an email to the other guys operating the leg you're deviating to. Gives everyone an idea of when to expect the others, if they'll be at the hotel, (so nobody is waiting there for someone that lives locally, etc.), and also back up to prevent the sort of mistake described here, as one of the other guys might catch it also.

MD11Fr8Dog

Hehe, I had a DH to Milan via Amsterdam back in Sept. At 50W I saw on the big moving map on the wall that were making a big 180* turn. After chit chatting with an FA I learned there engine oil issues with #3 eng, and we were diverting to BOS. She learned I was a FedEx pilot and she gave me coupon for 25,000 FF miles and a comment card and the names of the front end FAs for my troubles

Got to BOS at 3am, no NWA people to recover, TSA kept us herded into a gate area. I was on the phone to CRS - I didn't want to try to check-in to a Days Inn at the same time as 200+ other people after waiting in line behind them with my taxi voucher. NW's plan was to get the plane fixed, legal rest the crew and try again that evening.

My plan was to go to the contract hotel we have in BOS and get CRS to make the appropriate changes to my trip. On the way to the contract hotel at 6am, CRS had a new plan, AF to CDG that night, 18hrs then go to DXB then DH back (originally we were just going to move a plane from Milan to CDG after a windshield replacement and Dh back).

I deviated the backside DXB-AMS-MSP-HDN.

I sent in the voucher, sent in the comment card with the names, and went to the NW website and filled out a comment as well.

I got mileage from MEM-MSP-MXP, BOS-CDG, DXB-AMS-MSP-HDN all in biz/1st. Got the 25,000 miles from the voucher, plus another 10,000 after a phone call from a NWA CS agent about my comment card, and 5,000 or 10,000, can't recall, for my troubles, from the NW online comments.

Good thing I didn't deviate on the front!