aa73

^^ Agree mostly. I gotta say that I always felt like I was working way harder flying intl than domestic. Reasons? All of the crap associated with crossing an ocean, for starters. Plotting the chart in ops... Getting and cross checking the oceanic clearance...making position reports (granted, it's all cpdlc now)... Dealing with foreign controllers... Always worried about stuff we take for granted in the US (MVAs, clearances, etc)... Dealing with 2hr bus rides in traffic to downtown... Rooms never ready when we're about to drop dead from fatigue... Exchange rates... Anti-American sentiment and precautions before even taking just a nice stroll... Etc, etc. It felt like I was putting in an extraordinary effort just to fly a 3 day Europe trip. Exhausting.

Domestic? Walk up to gate, board, deal with US controllers and the occasional ground stop, fly in radar contact the whole way, land, do another leg or two, then get to a US hotel where everything is familiar...all on the same time zone and on normal body clock without all the intl B.S.

So to me, the **effort** of the work on domestic is way less than on intl...even though I may work (fly) a couple more days a month. But it's way less tiring in the end. Sure, it's not as glamorous when I state I fly domestic 737, but who cares. Happy as a clam to fly domestic 737 for the rest of my career.

FirstClass

United new hires are being hired into the 75/76 as well.

Vma214

Personally, I found all nighters from the West coast to be the hardest flying there is, particularlly when you are based on the East coast. Pushing back at 0130 body time with just two guys and landing 5 to 6 hours later was the WORST for me. Been flying Int'l across the pond for the last 15 years and, while it does have it's challenges to the body I seem to be able to deal with it without lasting effects...and I'm no Spring chicken. For me, the less times I have to raise and lower the gear, the better. JMO.

TrakTrak

I agree. I've always wanted to fly WB-I and the 777 had always been the goal. Not so much anymore. 14hr legs to Asia and deep south are no longer ideal. Flying 73-I is about all I want to do and still has a good deal of domestic flying in the lines. SJU to ORD is about all I can take right now. Maybe one day I'll bid over to WB-I, but if I don't, no sweat off of my back.

Sliceback

International is typical 10-12 flights a month. Can be as few as 6.

Domestic probably averages 25-30.

Ground stuff has the biggest variables in hassle/BS factor, especially as Captain. Flying is the easy part. Fewer push backs is easier.

It's all part of the pluses and minuses balancing act.

To me a steady diet of any of it gets old.

RJSAviator76

If I get back to 121, the only way I'd fly international is if I was juniored into it. My personal preference is domestic.

aa73

Bert - you nailed it. Pluses and minuses to both. All boils down to personal preference. You sick of TGU yet?

sky jet

If you want international out of the box you will need to go to the supplemental carriers. Atlas, Kalitta or Omni most likely. There are a few others. IOE at Kalitta my first leg was CVG-LEJ. Second was LEJ-DEL. Rinse wash repeat. I did not find it to be as hard on my body as I feared and after 27 years of passenger flying I find that I really like flying freight. You will take a hit on pay though. The money is at the Legacies.

YAKflyer

I will admit to being a old retired fart, but I think the type of international flying and how one does it makes a huge difference.

My first checkout came in 1987 on the 727. I LOVED the 727 and flew it one seat or an other about 21 years. I loved both the airplane and the mission. I worked for Delta and flew it in the mountain west much of the time out of radar coverage. It was why I bypassed going to the 767 for a long time.

In 2000 I transferred from domestic 767 to international at JFK. The reason I chose to make the change was quite simply I wanted to see more of the world. At the time JFK had the most destinations of any Delta gateway and not once did I regret the decision. As they say it's nice in Nice.

I flew it as a commuter and I joined a crash pad that was in a neighborhood of $1M homes one block from Forrest Park. We all had our own beds and shared a dresser and closet space. There were 21 house members and I never saw more than four on any given night. Since I lived in Utah I would commute out the day before my trip so I would never allow myself to begin a trip tired. Typically I would fly 3 day trips back to back. I never felt like I ever got more than just a little sleepy and my strategy was to force myself up after taking a 3 hour nap on arrival. I would then be up until 10 or 11 depending on what time pickup was the next day with the goal of getting 8 hours of sleep. If i was staying in NYC for another trip I would just go to bed at 10PM local and sleep in the next day as long as I could.

It was a fun time for my wife and I and often she would fly out to NYC and join me when I finished the second 3 day. We'd catch a B'way play and then head back over the pond for a week until I had to be back for my next series of trips. There was one 2 month period when I didn't see my own bed between Europe trips and sailing in the Caribbean. The crash pad had a washer & dryer and I could do what was necessary there as easily as back home. The flying wasn't as much fun as the 727, but as a total package it was a magical time for my wife and I.

I went on to bid the 767-400 at LAX which at the time was 100% Hawaiian flying and then the 777. I found the Hawaiian flying and ATL-NRT 777 to be much more tiring than the NATL flying I did at JFK. I retired from Delta just before the bankruptcy flying a 777 from CDG to ATL....I cried the whole way. In 2008 I joined Air India for two years and was back on the NATL again....mostly FRA-ORD or EWR. That was kind of tough as they did not add a relief pilot until the flight was scheduled for 10 hours. Still I never felt as tired as a east coast 4AM wake up coming from the mountain time zone. FWIW I just turned 66.

Like many things in life, how good what you're doing is is what you make of it. YMMV

Qotsaautopilot

^^^so you commuted from a base you lived in to other bases just to fly a different type of plane? I will admit your retirement timing was perfect so maybe you are smarter than you seem.