I guess I'm a slave to a schedule, because I don't know what is "fun" about charter flying. Lol. It's no different to me who sits in the back, I view my overnights as fun. And I'm as big of a sports fan as any, but it's not like I get to interact with players or anything.

 

More aggravation for the same pay and possibly longer hours.

Also a greater threat of something going amiss on a small ramp whose staff is unfamiliar with anything bigger than a Gulfstream.

"Someplace new?" Flew to the Stans at my ACMI. That was enough.

 

I guess I consider 48 hours on the beach in Guam or breakfast at a seaplane base in Vancouver, lunch at the foot of the Canadian Rockies and dinner by the water in San Diego all in one day to be the "fun" parts.

I think we're arguing past each other. To be clear, there's nothing fun about waiting on a team running 3 hours late with a rain delay just to fly to Newark in the middle of the night. I was mostly referring to going different places from the norm being the "fun" part. Otherwise, I agree they can be a lot of aggravation and annoyance for the same amount of pay.

 

For commuters, charters can occasionally be good for getting an overnight at home, eg the 75 doesn’t normally fly to CLT, IAD, MKE, ORD/MDW, HOU, DAL, SAT, etc, but it’s not uncommon to see the occasional long overnight in those places for charter trips.

 

Well ya I've never seen a 48 hour Guam. I'd do that in a heart beat and I also bid for SAN overnights but a vast majority of what is going to junior people and/or open time charter flying to GS/pick up is not any of those. I'd rather just wait for Hawaii or SAL/GUA/SJO rotations than take that charter flying. That's just me personally though.

 

i don't think he was being snarky at all. I'd venture to guess maybe 5% of the rotations starting with 0XXX have charters in them.

 

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Maybe that’s because you have never taken an ER a 7-day Mil charter to the Far East in support of a global multi-national exercise. Or flown an ER to an obscure offline island in the south Pacific to repatriate 26 US missionaries who were trapped there when Covid cancelled all air service to the island. Definitely some of the most memorable trips in my career.
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We went from talking normal charters on an everyday occurance to hitting the lottery on the bid packet for best charters of all time.

 

Not sure what your deal is? The question was asked if charter flying was a good deal or not. The overwhelming consensus from many different perspectives seems to be that, like most things, there are some good deals and some that are more trouble than they're worth.

 

Charters are absolutely a mixed bag. They can be some of your most memorable rotations or major gotchas.

The plus sides are definitely about the unusual duration and location of layovers, the atmosphere of the passengers in the back and the food can be amazing. 72 hours in PHX in January for a NCAA booster club to the winning team was a great overnight and easiest 5 day domestic trip I’ve ever had. Flying winning teams to from a championship is fun, we also do very rewarding missions as others have mentioned. NBA charters are much more health food conscious now, still taste great for the most part, I personally found out coconut water wasn’t for me and would never have tried it but for the charter.

Down sides are type/time of flights and not having normal ops screws up normal rhythm that becomes a LOE level threat management quickly, notable mention of dark FBO ramps making for a lot of “trusting” your wingwalker who is not looking at your wing. Non NBA 757 charters also carry the caveat of you are generally flying the system spare airplane around so never trust the ferry flight on a charter trip. Originally scheduled to DTW, took off from SoCal once after a military charter with enough fuel to make AUS/ ATL/ MCO depending on whichever part they couldn’t replace. Landed in AUS to replace a plane with lightning strike damage.