Overnighters, Do you enjoy them

[TurbineDreamer]

Hi People

Just wondering if you guys who get to do overnighters enjoy them. Is it always exciting getting to stay over in London, Hong Kong, LA etc, on long haul overnighters or does it get repetitive.

Keen to hear how you find them.

[maxgrad]

how much would you like living out of a suitcase and knowing your family is elsewhere while you see the same damn inhouse movies.
The fun of it wears out very quickly,did for me anyway

[Scrubbed]

Well you should try getting out of your room now and then, Max. Or are you trying to save your allowances and getting by on 2min-noodles until the next crew-meal???

Of course, the worst part is always having to sneak off to try and avoid going out with the sleazy hosties (I'm NOT talking about the poofters...) who all want to get into your pants.

Not always easy to have a quiet beer, without fending off unwanted advances. All the chicks ever want is to go out and blow all their dough getting spastic, then try some cheap line about a "room-party" for some ''boom-boom'' later on...

Quite sad, really..........

[Capt Fathom]

Scrubbed
I think you are reading a bit too much into Maxgrad's very accurate description of 'life-on-the-road'. Being away from family is a pain, but it pays the bills and is the career we chose. It's the flying in between that is the good bit!

[RENURPP]

Have to agree with maxgrad.
If you have a life at home then overnights are a pain in the bum after a while.
If you are single with no life at home then overnights may be OK.
To a large degree it depends on the people you overnight with.
Nothing worse then signing on and you read the rest of the crew names, you get this horrible sinking feeling and know the next couple of days are going to be ****.

[The Messiah]

Being able to take your girl with you to Paris so you can propose to her atop the Eiffel Tower or playing your favourite golf course in San Francisco every month, pigs knuckle in Mainze, watching Lennox Lewis fight Klitschko in LA, the 4th day of the Aussies beating India in the last test in Bombay for the holy grail. I'll never get sick of it.

People save their entire lives just to go to ONE of these places.

[HEALY]

Messiah

Your last line sums it up really

[NAMPS]

It's great fun while you're single and get the chance to "export some Aussie beef" :E ;)

[TurbineDreamer]

Thanks for your responses. It is good to hear differnent people's opinions. I myself have not had the opportunity to experience this. I always thought it wiuld be pretty exciting, new cities all the time. Though I do appreciate it might be harder with a family at home.

Anyway cheers and thanks again

[Blown Seal]

Scrubbed,
go and take a serious f@rking reality check mate. Your post takes the gold medal for biggest w@nker load of sh!te for the ytd. Get yer hand off it.
:hmm:

[maxgrad]

scrubbed
Once heard a story of a man who stuck a power drill bit up his nose and turned it on, "because he had an itch he could't reach with his finger"
Are you that man?

[DUXNUTZ]

MaxGrad, Maaaate THAT'S fricking hilarious!

[maxgrad]

actually true story that happened "at" an American. Sued the drill company for not having a safety label to that effect.

Unfortunately Scrubbed just reminded me of that story due to his one eyed little boy approach to a statement.

Overnights can be an absolute party but seriously how many time can you do the same things, different ports, different crew, same headache in the morning, still not at home with family in back yard with a beer and a footy.................

[Scrubbed]

Ahhhhh, Max. In your haste to employ your long-saved tale of nose-picking desperation, you over-looked the very obvious... My post was dripping in sarchasm.

Sar-chasm: The GULF between the facetious comment and the imbeciles (Maxgrad and Blown Seal) who don't understand it.

I deduce two things from your mumblings:

1. You DO get by on 2-min noodles which is why you took such offence. Sorry to blow your cover.

2. Your nose-picking story is an adaptation of something mind-blowingly stupid you once did (or an amalgamation of more than one) in the past and which you now employ as a "lesson for others".

Good one....... :ok:

[amos2]

I think both of you miss the point about overnights!?

You do them, simple as that!

[Di_Vosh]

A simple question gets turned into a slagging match :(

Hi TD,

I cant talk from a flying perspective, but in a former life I've lived and worked in three countries. I'm a born traveller, and loved every minute of it.

The Messiah summed it up pretty well

"People save their entire lives to go to ONE of these places".

It is really up to you whether you enjoy it or not (Obviously).

Judging by some of these posts, there are those that wouldn't enjoy a three day layover in Paris; while others would be able to enjoy themselves on an overnight in Dubbo.

DIVOSH!

[maxgrad]

amos 2
true, required part of the job so we do them.

Scrubbed
keep talking your brain will eventually kick in:E

[Chimbu chuckles]

Well quite apart from the fact that overnights are a required part of the job...and if you want to earn reasonable money and fly larger aircraft you have zero choice...they can be as good as you make them.

I will preface what follows with the fact that I am lucky...my airline doesn't have daily flights to many of our destos so we actually do get enough time, usually, to actually get out and about.

I have just returned from a BNE-AKL flight where I got 2 days in AKL, and caught up with an old mate from PNG days who I haven't seen in 10+ yrs...and 3 days (not including a 1/2 day at each end of those, i.e. arrived 1130LT departed 1300LT) where I caught up with 4 different mates and their wives in BNE. I could have also taken my Bonanza for a fly in BNE but just didn't get around to it. In AKL I was taken out to Dairy Flat aerodrome for a poke around and then to a aircraft restoration business, that belongs to friends of my mate, where I got to poke around a MK 16 Spitfire, Meteor, P40, Hawker Hart and a bunch of others...and an invite when next in AKL to have a fly of their Piston Provost.

When I get Sydney flights I catch up with my brother and his wife/kids, Father etc. In Dubai I usually have at least a lunch and often a few beers with mates in Emirates, In London I catch up with mates and usually end up out at White Waltham for a few beers and watch people coming and going in Tiger Moths etc...probably get a go in his C180 again soon. In Bangkok...well I am a single dad so I often misbehave in BKK:E ...in Perth I catch up with mates from my PX and NJS days. Frankfurt is no fun at all because 1/. no old mates and 2/. our HOTAC is 16km out of town...and Frankfurt is boring anyway...so I go for a walk or if it's snowing stay inside and be bored waiting the bar to be opened and have a few cleansers with whomever I am flying with...yet to fly with someone I won't drink with though I am developing preferences:suspect:

Life could be a LOT worse...I might be working for Emirates where every RON is min rest...and all you do is sleep and then crawl back in the jet feeling crap. Same with Dragonair according to mates there...pity we only ever turn around in HKG or there would be some serious games of beer there :\

I spent years...read decades...avoiding long haul and now I am quite enjoying it.:ok:

And I have 5 days at home with my daughter before heading off to LHR via Dubai each way...then race down to BNE for the Talair re-union and then a week + more leave after that at home with my daughter before 7 days in Dubai with a few Jeddah shuttles in between beers with my Emirates mates....again.

Life is not too bad at all....what you make of it really. While I fully accept that long haul will wear thin in time I am 43 now and I reckon by the time it does I'll be about ready to hang up the full time wings anyway. In 10 yrs or so I might dust off the UK residency rights and pull my finger out on the pommy ATPL (just two exams currently with sufficient command time on large aircraft) and then go and do contract work in the UK for 6 mths a year....or not as the case may be and the mood takes:ok:

Like everything else in this industry you can be glass half full or half empty ;)

EDIT: Yes there are days when the last thing I want to do is go to work...like when the wake up call comes in Dubai or Bangkok in the middle of the night before an 8-12 hr sector, you really would rather stay in bed...but sliding into my seat in the 767 always puts a smile on my dial.

[Towering Q]

When overnighting at Warburton, take your own pillow. The pillows at the roadhouse are rock hard and have a peculiar smell.:uhoh:

[Continental-520]

As above for Gascoyne Junction.

That place is a mistake. Fully.


520.

[v1rotate]

avoid going out with the sleazy hosties

If only there was a hostie on a clapped out F27 doing night freight. I should be so lucky. I only have a crusty old Captain to share breakfast with :} .

Holiday Inns are at least quite standard all over Europe and I do find my self mentioning that "home" is the hotel. Doesn't bother me though. But I still love my own bed and prefer my own cooking.

[redsnail]

I'm away for 6 days at a time. Still settling into the routine so to speak. Never know what hotel we're staying at till that day. Fortunately the hotels are min 3 stars, usually 4 or more stars.

Get to stay all over Europe, main hassle is the hotel is usually near the airport and not that much time to go and explore which is a pity. The night freight job gave us more time to prowl around Paris etc.

The plus side is that it's a very social company and chances are there's another 2 crews in the same hotel. If some one had have said to me 5 years ago I'd be zooming around Europe in a bizjet I'd have laughed.

As has been said, a night stop is what you make it. You can stay in your room and watch BBC World or you can venture downstairs and meet some crews or if you have the time, venture out into the town.

[Borneo Wild Man]

Chimbu-now I know whos getting all those AKL trips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me, Id rather curl up with a good book-(No really!)

[TurbineDreamer]

Thanks for the responses. Interesting to see how people experience this part of the job.
Do you find it boring going to the same city several times a year or do you always find something new to do while you are on your stopover.

[7gcbc]

It really depends on who you overnight with, friends always make a new place interesting, or an old place familar and fun.

The thrill of a new place still entices me, new Pubs, restaurants, discovering the local markets and so forth, but its not that much fun on your own. (I refer to Chimbu above)

Single SO under 26 with similar placed collegues on a 47 in BKK, you're having a ball, however Married with kids and overnighting at the holiday grim on a bypass outside Milan with an early start has probably got to be at the bottom list of fun things to do.

Did a huge (for almost 2 years) week in week out, monday to friday business trips in Euroland, LHR, Paris, Rotterdam,Bonn, Grenoble, Marseille, Athens, Lisbon, Milan, Copenhagen, Stokholm etc.

It kinda wore off after 6 months, but that was for Business and not Line work. ( and I was 26 at the time)