Hum? that is a difficult question to answer Hank because I really don't think that there is an advantage from the commuting perspective of one company vs. the other, they both have business class commute and they both require you to commute as to arrive in Tokyo the day before your first duty day, they both have rosters that permits you to fly out the last day of your duty and the salary package for the F/O's is the same for both AJV and AJX (thanks to the guys that have been here since the beginning and fought hard to get conditions improved at these two contracts, I personally can't say thank you enough) the upgrade time frame is pretty much at the 4 year mark for both companies and they both are planning to run classes every other month for the foreseeable future, so it really depends on what kind of flying you want to do.
At AJV they are flying less than we are at AJX (about 40 hours vs. 70 hours) but that could very well change in the future because AJV is expecting an increased workload, they do mostly overnight stuff while we do some day trips (we also do some overnight stuff at AJX) but I will let an AJV guy to give you a more detailed example of their rosters and I will just give you one of my rosters as an example.
I arrive day one (day before my first duty) I'm using business class every month, to me being comfortable and not having to worry about loads etc. vastly out weight making a few extra hundred dollars a month.
1) over night trip to SIN
2) SIN
3) back to NRT
4) over night trip to HKG
5) HKG
6) return to TYO
7) Blank Day (basically off, it is not considered a day off but you are not obligated to be available for duty)
8)Sin overnight trip
9) Sin
10)return to NRT
11) China day trip (two leg day trip)
12) China day trip (two leg day trip)
13) Taipei over night
14) return to NRT
15) Standby duty from 3pm to 9 pm. (you are rarely called)
16) Blank day
17) HNL trip
18) HNL
19) return to NRT, and I commute home home the same day.
Mind you, I'm using two vacation days per month to extend my days off to 12 and remember that at AJV they do have one extra day off per month (11 vs 10 at AJX) that is probably the most tangible benefit at AJV is that they have an additional day off
Hope that helps