Having never flown for an airline I have a question about overnights at home. I do not mean overnights at your domicile, I mean at home. Example, I do not live at an airline domicile but I do live 5 minutes away from one that American Eagle and Express Jet fly into and overnight at. If I was to fly with a carrier and was able to get senior enough I could bid those trips, would I be able to spend that night at home? Would I be required to stay with the crew at the hotel and on the bus? Would it just be considered bad manors to leave the crew for a night with my family?


As I said, I have never flown airline so I have no idea how this would be viewed by the airlines if I was to overnight at home. If I was not able to overnight, I guess I could at least visit and spend some time with them.

Your crew would expect you to go home with your family. Lots of commuters at Skywest bid for overnights where they live, ya it's a great idea!!

Of course you could, and should go home to your family. If the rest of the crew has a problem with that, tough, it's your family. But it's not considered bad manors, so they shouldn't have a problem with it.

Many airlines have a hotel buy back program, where the company pays you some percentage of the hotel cost if you don't use it on a layover and cancel the room within the guidelines setup in the contract. Whether the carriers you mentioned have that, I can't say.

Not at all. It wouldn't even be considered bad manners.

I've seen it happen multiple times. Not a problem at all. Just let the rest of the crew know when and where you'll meet them the next day, and all will be well.

Overnights at home = Winning!

Thank you all very much for the responses. So now I just need to get to where I can do it.

Step #1 Get Hired
Step #2 Get Senior Enough
Step #3 Start enjoying nights at home

As long as you show up the next morning when and where you're supposed to, no one should care what you do with your night, or where you spend it. As long as you're fit to fly.

You dont necessarily have to be super senior. Ive been stuck on reserve for over two years and about once every 6 weeks Ill score an overnight at home. It also helps if its a particularly crappy overnight that no one else wants to do. Good luck!

I'm very junior having just switched jobs, but live near an outstation and you bet I'll bid for overnights at home just as often as I can. Its a nice city/hotel from what I'm told, with some occasional long layovers, so it will probably be a while before I get them. Alternatively my wife could drive down and enjoy a night away from home - date night!

I flew with a senior CA recently who grew up in different city served by the same airline; he'd spend the night at his parents house once a week. Not a bad thing at all.

Nothing wrong with it. Im doing it tonight in fact. We have no buy back program that Im aware of. The rooms are prepaid by the month I believe, so they will pay for the room whether I stay there or not.