Indulgence flights anyone?
 

All,

I'm planning on travelling to the USA some time in August or early September.

While looking through (somewhat expensive) flights someone me that while he was serving (some time ago) he was able to get 'indulgence flights' to the states, in seats that would otherwise be empty. It would not matter where in the states, as I could get a connection to my final destination. Do such flights still occur? If so, how do I go about organising it? I realise this is probably a long shot, but I thought it would be worth asking!

Any help much appreciated!

Craig

craigJ, and your present connection with the Services?

RAF reserves, I realise that indulgence flights might only be open to full time personnel. But I thought, if you dont ask...

thank you :)

Indulgence
 

So are there still regular indulgence flights to the US then?!
Can I take the wife and kid?!
BV
(Current serving RAF)
:p

I don't know about flights to the US, but - at a slight tangent to the thread - I hear that the scheme is to be opened up to siblings of serving personnel some time soon. This may be just applicable to my theatre but has anyone got any gen on this?

Interestingly the US military allow ex-service personnel, and I believe their families, to make indulgence flights. (this certainly used to be the case). This is indicative of the attitude to military "vets" in the USA in marked contrast to the situation here where its a case of "thanks for your years of loyal service, now sod-off."

We don't have that many flights going anywhere nice any more - and you have to have the wherewithall to get back without them anyway. Given how few flights there are and how old and broken the fleet is, would you really want to risk getting stranded and having to pay about 3x over the odd for that short notice one way ticket to get home? Just pay and let your travel insurance take the strain.

Mr C, I tend to agree it is not worth the hastle and risk.

Will you arrive for that holiday booking?

Will you arrive where you thought you would?

If you fly back civ how will you get home from the airport etc etc?

I indulged once when I was in Cyprus. We had priority and it was over Christmas. They were very good and we got the return tickets for a Herc waiting at home.

At Lyneham they put DAC on the flight and that was that. In those days though the system counted for something and at short notice a Comet route trainer was laid on :)

Cyprus, ASI and MPA is all you get these days. And then, no guarantee.

PN and Mr C have said it all.

Indulgence
 

If you have to pay for a civvy flight back (as a one way journey) it will cost you about 90% of the cost of a return flight anyway, so just pay for the return flight in the first place. You will have a much better chance of getting there and back on time as well.

Y_G

Tankertrash....

I believe the US scheme to which you refer is known as "Space A" (Space Available).

During my years as a RIAT volunteer, we often dealt with many ageing Americans who arrived at Fairford following a cheap ride to the UK aboard the visiting transports, using this scheme.

I was once at Dover AFB and there was an LED ticker running continually in departures that showed space available anywhere on the US network.

You might want to get to Fairchild but saw there was a flight to Riverside. If you thought you had a better chance of a flight from Riverside to fairchild then you could grab that one or wait for a better offer.

Once, in Kef, there was an ex-USAAF airman. He had hitched in from Thule I think but there were no onward flights to Europe. He was becoming a regular lounge lizard in the O-club and a right RPITA to the P3 guys. They invoked the RAF-MAC agreement and we flew him to UK in a Nimrod.

We explained the flight would take 9 hours which he thought was much longer than it took in a B25. Several hours into the flight and still 300 miles from Iceland the message had still not sunk in.

Eventually he was driven to the main gate at ISK and pointed in the direction of the station.:}

I was once approached at Incirlik by a Spam LTC who was looking for a trip to Mildenhall.

The Movers were unable to help as they didn't really deal with tankers and it would have confused the heck out of Upavon's truckie system anyway. So, ever keen to help an ally, I rang Starfleet on what was then a very rare animal, my personal GSM phone. The man said yes, so welcome aboard the mighty brown FunBus, Colonel.

But what really peeved me was that the miserable sod never even said thankyou. Ah well, I suppose it takes all types.....

Another problem with indulgence flights is that the staff repsonsible for the administration most likely have other duties and simply don't appear to care. Having been fobbed off that that there was no flight and then no space, I had to use specialist knowledge -including flight numbers, aircraft allocations, marks, configurations, roles and known numbers on the detachment to convincve them they needed to do something to get Mrs Aeronut onboard.

Heaven help those that aren't at the coal face with all the gen.

Sorry CraigJ. I wish it were better. A couple of those trips in a career and we would secure so much more goodwill from volunteers such as yourself.

Have a good trip safe in the knowledge you can expect what you paid for.

In years gone past there used to be 50 seats booked 3 times a week on BA flights to Washington, which people could apply for using the standard indulgence method.

The same was true for BA flights to Hong Kong (well I did say it was years ago).

While I can fully appreciate that the HK route is no more, given the amount of military personnel visiting Washington on a regular basis, embassy staff, Pentagon visits, etc, is there currently anything in place for getting UK military personnel to the USA?

That's about the top and bottom of it. Anything with 'Royal Air Force' painted on the side is a dangerous proposition if you want to get a) there, and b) there on time. Exercise traffic is always ripe for the chop wherever it's going, while even regular flights to Akrotiri can be hijacked by ops at short notice. Theoretically you can still indulge, but it depends on your willingness to travel Hit&Miss Airways for the bargain price of £20, with a reasonable likelihood your travel plans outbound, inbound, or both, will probably not go to plan.

I think that Virgin Atlantic have some form of MoD contract? I met some chaps recently in Las Vegas who'd flown some RAF folk over for the ARSAG 2009 conference.

I understand, though, that they flew over in whatever that bit at the back of an airliner cabin is called these days? Very infra dig....:= Not an Officer's way of travelling!

Our flight into Dover AFB, and on, was on a C141. This is strictly a jet powered Herc. The seats are the same, your feet get cold, your head gets hot, and you can see s*d all.

Now opposite us was a US Airman, PFC or whatever passes for the lowest of the low, wearing his BDUs (best dress?) and going back home Stateside with his fairly new best of British bride.

She was dressed the part: blonde hair, bolero jacket, tight tight pants, and strappy stilletoes.

The flight got off to a good start: 45 min ramp delay with the doors open. Then, once airborne, a 9 hr flight and the loadies wouldn't even let us stretch out in the warmth on top of the pallets.

The temperature was lowered several degrees with the string of blue epiteths from Mrs PFC. It really set up her move to her new homeland :}