Random Question: Flight Crews Staying far from Airports?
 

Random question. I'm used to seeing flight crews at hotels that are within, say, 5-20 mins from airports for obvious reasons.

I am staying in Stamford, CT, which is about an hour from JFK and the other NYC airports and about an hour from a smaller regional airport that is presumably only domestic flights in CT. I've seen flight crews from JetBlue (JFK based) and Etihad (with JFK tags) getting dropped off at this hotel. This seems pretty inconvenient with traffic, weather, etc.

Is it common to house flight crews so far from airports?

Being formerly in the transportation business, and moving flight crews was part of this job, it is very uncommon to have crews housed so far away from an airport as it is in their contract on the type and location of the hotels they are put in. It's possible these crews were on a delayed emergency stay, or may use the hotel as an "apartment" when they are based at an airport that is not the city that they live in (commuter employees), and it is their period that they are on standby schedules per their rotation.

I remember one time due to weather delays in South Florida, a few flights were delayed/canceled and we had to take some crews to hotels that were not their usual hotel as it was already booked solid with the regular crews. I remember one FA state that the union was going to be notified as the hotel they found rooms in was not enclosed. This meant that the rooms opened to an outside balcony instead of an interior hallway. Their contract calls for this as it is supposedly safer for the crew members as there is more controlled access to the hallways than an open balcony.

I'm not in the hotel industry, but if I could, I would open a "hotel" that only caters to flight crews. They usually can turn a room twice in one day as most crews are only their for up to 12 hours, and there will always be crews needing to lay over before returning to their base due to DOT's Hours of Service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay_City
https://www.headland.com.hk/

though I doubt they turnover twice a day

Absolutely normal for the (long haul) airline for which my significant other works. They go wherever they can negotiate the best deal.

A friend of mine is a pilot for JetBlue. He stays in Stamford fairly regularly and complains about it fairly regularly. JetBlue flies out of HPN as well as JFK so Stamford offers an almost equally inconvenient location for crews coming from both airports.

I do know that international crews who have 2 day layovers due to flights not operating daily often stay more centrally in those cities.

A few years ago I went to a brunch at a hotel in Long Beach, NY (about 20mins drive from JFK), I saw flight crew from I think KE or OZ checking in which rather surprised me. The hotel itself was fine, and really not that far from JFK but I'd assumed most crews would be put up at a more central NYC location in Manhattan or somewhere else. Apparently the hotel was used by quite a few airlines.

Perhaps this is no longer the case, but as of a year ago, AF crews flying in to LAX were sent to Orange County (I believe, Anaheim). It would be a nightmare ride during rush hour and could take, at least 90 minutes, after a 11-12 hour flight from CDG.

A little OT, but there is a Canadian REIT that used to specialize in hotels for rail crews. As they have diversified, they are now trying to offload those original hotels. The contracted room rates for the rail crews plus the fact that they are in locations that don't get much other traffic lead to very low margins. The flight crew unions might have some pull in demanding higher quality rooms than train crews can get, but airlines probably aren't paying the same rate that we do for their rooms either.

Do flight crews get hotel points for their stays?

Last week my RDU - DTW flight was delayed due to late arriving FA crew the night before (same FA crew was working RDU - DTW so had to delay so they could be legal). Took them about 30 minutes once it was announced they were on the way from the hotel which surprised me because there are a bunch of hotels right near RDU.

Overheard the DL FAs after I boarded and sounds like they got moved from the airport hotels to a hotel closer to (or in) downtown Raleigh (didn't catch name of the new hotel). Seems like an interesting decision -- on the one hand the crews might like it more because they actually get away from the airport but on the other hand the commute time is longer, there's a higher likelihood of running into traffic, and if you are just doing a straight overnight turn (aka MSP - RDU // RDU - DTW which is what I believe is the turn based on the equipment), you can't really go enjoy downtown Raleigh anyway so why bother?

If they always stay at the hotel that I was at, I can see why they would complain. It is a great brand, but was a terrible hotel. Very old, uncomfortable beds and rooms, kind of dirty too. The town is pretty nice, but you need a car to get around.

I fly very frequently now and after a certain point, being a passenger drives me crazy and I need a break. I love aviation, but I don't know how flight crews do it!

Regional jet trash mafia pilot here but we do long vs short overnights for us greater than 15hours means we get hotels further away with more stuff to do. Sometimes its 30 40 min ride.
I dont really care where i stay though as long as theres cheap food nearby and i can walk without being accosted by beggers.

Back when I was working in hotels, one job I had was Revenue Manager. One of my tasks was to help set rates for groups and companies seeking special rates. We were roughly 25 minutes from the airport. Because of the distance, we didn't get many requests for crew rates. But when we did, the rates the airlines were seeking were laughably low. Even if you could essentially double book your rooms every day, you'd never make money simply.

Perhaps it's not the same everywhere, but the couple of times we did dabble in crew rates, it was up to the airline to handle the room. By that I mean they were given access to the room 24/7. They paid for it whether it was empty or if they cycled several employees through. In that scenario, your crew-only hotel concept wouldn't result in double booking.

The couple of times we did sign a crew contract was via foreign airlines. Their typical layover was over 24 hours long. The airline selected us because we were Downtown, which was far more attractive to the crew members. (Maybe their union was involved.) I know for one airline, they paid us $40 more per 24 hours than they paid out at the airport.

As I noted above, crew rates are usually dirt cheap. In the example above, even with that additional $40, their rate was still cheaper than basically any of our rates. Because the rates were so cheap, crew members didn't earn frequent guest points.

I'd bet that very few hotels are giving out points on crew rates. Aside from being cheap, they also are always direct billed. Most frequent guest programs do not grant points to rooms that are direct billed.

I have seen CX flight crew staying at the Anaheim Hilton. I was surprised they were so far from LAX.

Many flight crews stay at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum in London which can be an hour's drive in traffic. You'd think it would make more sense to have crews at airport hotels.