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LTN Phobia

To be honest, in F or J, it's no big deal at all, really. It's doing in Y/PE that is rather taxing. The people who put up with doing a lot of long haul flying in Y/PE have my respect for their perseverance, patience and fortitude.

I find it so much easier to do XXX-SYD-SIN-LHR-YYY-LHR-SIN-SYD-XXX (XXX being Australian domestic destination and YYY somewhere in Europe) in F twice a month* compared to the same pattern once a month in Y that I used to do some time ago (and this is with working all day immediately before/after arrival and during transit). I didn't last too long doing that. It was too tough.

Having a bed makes a huge difference and effectively renders what is essentially a horrid experience of being trapped in a metal tube with a very small space pretty tolerable. I generally do not think flying once a week between LHR and SIN in CW or F to be particularly harmful for mental or physical health**, although I would say Y or WT+ would be - just the lack of space and not being able to sleep in a proper bed is rather hard.

However, I felt really sorry for the guy who was sent by his workplace to SIN for a day in F so that he could sleep, after having been at work in London all day and work on arrival for a few hours before flying back, only to be kept awake by unruly children throughout the flight...

*Not doing that every month. I don't really like sitting in a dry, metal tube, or airports.
** In the absence of particular health conditions that might make it harder on one's health.

T8191

For the MONEY! Companies don’t pay for people to fly F endlessly and yet pay them the Minimum Wage.

Even MoD used to pay for me to fly Business on long-haul.

AlicorporateUK

^ I personally did it* for several years and it got tiring.

*Short-haul, though, therefore I guess not as exciting as flying First to LAX or JNB whatever but, still, 4 flights a week and a rather tedious commute on the whole.

G

PETER01

I personally wouldn't want to do that amount of flying but there are people who drive 50/75k miles [insert other higher figure] and much more a year for lots of years which might actually be worse but that's just my personal view point. Prior to mobile phones, video conferencing etc and technology in general that was very common.

I did know a guy a few years ago who flew in F return to NY every fortnight or so, sometimes every week, plus his UK/European and personal travel must have added to easily 15k TP's I'd imagine. He was the head guy at a well known global Investment/Equities fund.

cupsandsaucers

I bet every single one of his dreams had Concorde in it.

T8191

And there's the rub. A decent l/h with sleeeeeeep is much easier than a s/h 'flying bus' with no legroom.

I used to do 3+ hours commuting every day, Underground/surface rail, for MANY years. That was a PITA too.

THEOBCMAN

I would do a weekly F commute anywhere - just for a year though and then reap the Avios & status rewards after !

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crazyanglaisy

If you're accumulating that number of tier points, it's the ability to remain productive in the workplace that I struggle to get my head around. Presuming, of course, that if you're funded to fly return trips in F each week, you're likely to have an awful lot of professional responsibility. I guess the JNB commute would be do-able (it's just a different bed for the night), but doing that to SIN each week is something that I couldn't comprehend for myself. Nothing about that appeals to me at all.

I'm going to be scraping 3,000 TPs this year, after a couple of years of scraping 5,000. I must say I'm finding it utterly liberating to have rolled back on my flying over the last 12 months. I feel so much better for it, in every aspect of my life. Yes, I'll miss the nice meals and better gin in the CCR, but not that much!

LTN Phobia

As long as you can sleep well on the flight, or you can work on the flight, it really is a non-issue for long haul, I find.

It's lots of short haul flights or Y/PE that really does you in, or disruptive people on the flight who prevent you from sleeping properly. Short haul has far too much dead time like security, and waiting for baggage etc. no matter what class of travel. Y/PE is plain uncomfortable and not conducive to good night's sleep or work.

Or overnight flights around 6 hours or shorter where they turn the lights on 2 hours before landing and start the meal clatter (I'm looking at some of the Asian carriers who insist on doing that), resulting in getting no more than 4 hours' sleep (usually 3 hours, because of the first hour having lots of clattering, light etc.). Or for some people even longer ones like 9 hours would still not give them sufficient sleep because of the first/last hours being disruptive to sleep.

SIN is actually a pretty good one from the sleep opportunity perspective. Both directions are night flights so you usually get a decent sleep, and long enough to even sleep up to 10 hours for those who need it. The only issue may be the jetlag but you can wing it for a short trip.

T8191

Referring back to my Military days again, of course there were the times when my wife and I were posted miles/hours away in UK, leading to my weekend motoring commutes of 3+ hours e/w whilst living apart during the working week. Leaving home at 0300 near Weston-Super-Mare in time to catch the 0712 Metropolitan Line from Uxbridge into Whitehall was NOT fun. NOT quite what we married for ... I had about 5 years of that, one way or another.

I killed my career by forcefully declining a posting to the north of Scotland at the time my wife was posted to Berkshire. I felt 550 miles of separation for 2.5 years was not quite what I wanted!!

However, two good pensions helps fund our travels, so all ended happily ever after!!

Geordie405

Oh the shame of it. I only have 2185 TPs and 56582 Avios at present. The most I have managed has been a tad over 3500 and I felt that was a crazy year of travelling.

I do agree that flying J or F is far less taxing than Y or PE. Unfortunately my firm only pays PE so anything above that is self-funded, as are all the leisure trips, and although I am reasonably well paid I simply cannot afford to pay for J each time I fly and especially so if it's a family trip.

The commuting by train analogy is a good one. When I started working in the Square Mile (City of London) I was living in Maidstone at the time. The only way I could get to work was the 06xx train to Paddock Wood (I always had a seat on this) followed by a train up to London Bridge (rarely managed a seat here) and then either walk to the office from there or it was another train into Cannon Street and a shorter walk from there.

In terms of the return it was either leave work at 4.30 pm and walk to London Bridge, 5.30 pm and walk to Blackfriars, or 7.00 pm and walk to Cannon Street. Everything else involved multiple trains / changes. I spent probably 4 hours a day commuting to and from London in dated slam-door rolling stock where you were lucky to get a seat.

Moving to St. Albans and commuting into Moorgate was a massive improvement, both in terms of journey time, rolling stock, and frequency of trains. It was probably the equivalent of moving from a middle seat in Y to at least PE if not J

FT01

I'd much rather make do with a measly bacon roll in the lounge and Group 2 boarding, than endure that amount of flying. In any class.

By law of averages, you're going to get disruptive people on some of those flights.
Not to mention the jetlag, bacteria from people not washing their hands, the pressures on your internals etc. Can't be good for your physical health. Or sanity.

T8191

It's more than that IMO ... it's the HOURS out of you life, on a weekly basis, regardless of mode/class of travel. At least MoD paid for me to do the Telegraph crossword inbound, and the Evening Standard one homebound, on the train. But the lifestyle contrast from living and working on an RAF station (5 minute bike ride to work) was awful!!