a) If you have a day off in NRT, say with an early finish the previous day and late start the following day, is there any problem with you leaving Japan provided you are back in time for duty?
Yes, there is a problem because when you commute back for your late start and then fly all through the night you're going to be knackered and the poor bloke sitting next to you is going to be carrying you. It is not acceptable that you'd be permanently shagged and your name would be mud in the first week of being on line, as well as the obvious risks it poses to safety. The nearest place to could live would be Korea and even if you had perfectly timed flights with no delays and lived next door to ICN then you'd still be looking at leaving your house some 4 hours before report. To then fly the CAN and OKA route you would be a gibbering mess by the time you had to cope with the edge of typhoon winds we often experience there. No, it's a really stupid idea and that doesn't even account for the immigration side of things (Shore Pass versus E/D card) let alone if you get a roster change. Even a Blank Day on the roster is often not a day off (unless required for 'legality') and is subject to change. Forget the idea.
b) If she has a choice of cities, we were thinking it could be worthwhile going for one with a greater number of overnights, and I could just stay at 'home'. As such, does anyone have any advice on this, i.e. is it likely/possible and if so, what cities have a greater number of overnights, understanding that schedules/routes etc are subject to change?
I find that I rarely go anywhere more than once in a roster period, unless you include OKA which is used as a cargo 'hub'. We obviously fly a fair bit into China but DLC, TSN, XMN and TAO are turnarounds. PVG and CAN would be available but if you could face living in China then you'd be better flying with the Chinese and getting paid more to put up with the place. If anywhere, I would say HKG might appear a couple of times on a roster. It's generally a short stay but you might be able to spend a few extra hours at home. Our Korean pilots normally manage a quick look at their houses when they do ICN flights but I can't remember when I last stayed there......maybe we're not night stopping there at the moment
SGN, RGN, SIN, HNL, BKK, TPE you'll only ever see once on your roster, unless your name is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (where X = a random number and should not be counted as specific). So, in summary, by all means move closer to NRT than Oz if you want to reduce your commute time and if it works for you then one of destinations would make sense but I think you'll normally only manage to get an extra night at home once per month.
2. I notice that CReW states that you would have access to staff travel after 6 months of service. Can anyone advise whether this 6 months would start post check to line or after commencement of training?
I don't know the definitive answer to this by I am pretty certain it's from when you start your training. The reason I say this is because I've known guys who are freshly released to the line use ZED tickets to go home on their days off. Obviously they would have to use the C class option for the first 6 months if the staff travel rule applied to getting checked to the line but they definitely used ZED tickets within that time frame.