I would have to agree with Typhoonpilot. It would be impossible to commute from the states. I was able to bid for the last 10 days off in June and returned home for a week. June was my top bid month, which comes around every 5 months. Plus, other than your annual leave ticket, you will have to pay staff travel fees for your ticket. I used positive space (we call it CAT 99) fare and it was almost 500 dollars to ride in economy. Economy for 13 hours to JFK is not very much fun.
I can usually get a block of 4-5 days off in a row each month in the non top bid months but that is not enough time to return to the states. One of the things that made Emirates attractive to me was the fact that I would no longer be commuting. After many years of commuting in the states, that was a real plus, and the commute there was less than 2 hours.
Cerberus hit the nail on the head regarding scheduling inserting trips. It happens all of the time. I sometimes wonder why we even bother to bid, as the schedules are always "tweaked for efficiency."
To GoForIt and Not quite right, I also would be happy to answer your questions. Just send me a PM and I will respond as soon as I can.
I also heard yesterday from a pretty good source, the the DEC program is about to stop for various reasons, that the contracts that have been signed will be honored, but that assessments for DEC's is rapidly winding down. Evidently the new VP flight ops is not too keen on the idea. Has any body else heard this?
Regards,
330 Man