Air Commuting every week
 

For those who work away from home during the week and commute home at weekends. Where do you commute to and from? How does it work for you?
Thanks

For the last 16 months, I've been working in Milwaukee Mon-Thu and home in Maine Fri-Sun. Until a month ago (when negotiations between NW and the mechanics' union broke down), it was reasonably easy to take; CO President's Club membership let me relax in the Detroit WC's during my 1-2 hour layovers, rapidly accumulated PE status let me ride in front most of the time (although a long stint of CRJs between DTW and PWM was quite unpleasant) and a long weekend every week gave me more flexibility in the time I'm able to spend with my family.

Since labor talks broke down, though, delays and cancellations are taking their toll and travel on NW has gotten much more stressful. I've had enough.

No other carrier has a reasonable schedule out of PWM, so I'm bussing to Boston to fly Midwest Express starting the week of 8/22. I'll still be able to leave early Monday and be home by 8:30PM Thursday. BOS has a PC where I can idle, awaiting my flight to MKE or bus home.

My recommendations, if you value your sanity (since you're a FT'er, some of them will be blatantly obvious):

• Sign up for your preferred carrier's FF program (duh). You'll value the improved seat selection and opportunities for ugrades once you've obtained status.
  
• Sign up for your selected hotel's loyalty program. Upgrades and guaranteed preferences and reservations will make your stays away from home a little easier to take.
  
• If you'll be renting a car, get set up for a corporate account and/or a preferred membership with your rental agency of choice. It will get you out of the parking lot much faster.
  
• Get a membership in the carrier's club of choice, a Platinum Amex, or a Priority Pass. Beats the hell out of hanging around the gate, and free wireless access can be had at some (CO, for example).
  
• Fly direct if you possibly can. Dealing with connecting flights will, at a minimum, double your chances of delays and cancellations.
  
• Travel light. Leave a bag with the stuff you don't need to bring home every week at your work site hotel (assuming it's the same every week, of course). This lets me travel with just my laptop bag and a briefcase-sized satchel containing clean skivvies and a couple of shirts. No need to check anything, and you're not a bin hog.
  
• Get assigned seats in advance of your arrival at the airport. The folks that wait are the ones that get IDB'ed.
  
• Check in online before you get to the airport and skip the line at the ticket counter or kiosks . . . you can head straight for security when you get to the terminal.

The only part of my current job that's stressful is the travel, and even then it's usually just the trip home that gets me worked up when things are irregular. My prior position was one where I was on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and that was far more stressful than this. Though I don't get to see my family every day, I do get to enjoy the time I do have with them far more than in my previous position, since I don't have to take my work home with me.

weekly commute.
 

I used to do London to Canberra, Australia via Sydney or back every weekend. Does that count as a weekly commute.

I did not find the travel stressful, in that I know all the places to change aircraft (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, BKK, Joburg, Santiago de Chile, LAX and so on) and knew the timetable. If there were any delays then I could work out the re-route myself, before the agents even got to know about it. Hey, get on an aircraft and let the carrier take the strain. What else can I do, walk?

So the commuting was not stressful, although there were some airports that I would AVOID totally and some if possible. BKK is on my list of those to miss out.

Then there was the being away, well there are ways of communicating and they are getting to be so much easier now with webcams and so on. Living in hotels, well, that is my life anyway, so one is little different from another except for the jet noise at the airport or the traffic noise downtown.

The jetlag was OK if you know how to handle it and can get 10 hours sleep on the plane.

My friends and family accepted that if I did not travel, then I did not get paid, so off I go all the time anyway.

At least after 9/11 the three million miles that expired unused would not go!

Talk it through, and communicate with those you love.

Up until Jan of this year, I commuted every other weekend JFK-GRU/GIG. I loved the 10+ hour flights. Peace and quiet. :D

Live in New Orleans work in NYC. I fly out Monday mornings return home late on Thursday evening. I stay in hotels during the week. I work on actuals, not per diem, which would be next to impossible in NYC. Eating and sleeping is expensive here. Work for a major consulting firm and my client is a very large financial services firm. Between my client's negotiated hotel rates and my firm's negotiated hotels I have tried out (or will try out) most of the nice hotels in the city. I bore easily so I like to move around from week to week, even if it means longer commutes to the client site. Some hotels have better gyms and some have better restaurant selections. For example, the W Union Square has great restaurant choices around the hotel but it's gym is in the basement which I find claustrophobic. However the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park has a harbour view spa with really nice cardio and free weights but there is NOTHING around the hotel.

I have been on the road in different locations for the last 6 years and love it. You have to be independent. Not every location is a winner. I have been in Hartford, CT; Addison, TX; Parsippany, NJ to name a few of the less desirable locations.

With a few exceptions, I've been commuting on LON-AMS (2 days per week in AMS) every week for the past several years. I don't find it in the slightest stressful - I have adapted my travel plans as varying factors have changed, and, through time, managed to find the easiest way to get from one end to the other in maximum comfort.

My latest change comes as bmi has twatwaffled itself and I've been looking for a new carrier. At the same time, I've started cycling again - London is now full of bikes. It started off with the bombs in July, but now it's got to a critical mass where enough people are cycling to encourage more to do so, for its own sake. So, City Airport is now reachable by bike (45 minutes) and I've found a source of cheap ex-LCY tickets. So, LCY-AMS weekly it shall be!

Being in Amsterdam is fun, too - it's a city with plenty to do (particularly outside the main tourist drag), I've got to the point where I understand plenty Dutch (my speaking it is altogether shakier), and, as well as being joined by colleagues, I have several friends over there, both through the customer, and for other reasons.

Not myself. But once I had a professor during my Bachelor Degree classes at a California University who resides in Arizona and would thus commute back and forth through commercial jet at least once or twice a week. She taught twice a week during that semester.

In the early '80's I commuted weekly BUF-LAX. Of course, I worked for an airline, so I was always flying somewhere.

A couple of years later I commuted BUF-NYC weekly for about 3 years.

For the last 5 or 6 years, I've been either driving (BUF-DTW) or flying (BUF-BWI or LAX or ATL or wherever). Since April this year, I've been doing the weekly deal BUF-MSP. In order to get status faster, I've been routing myself MSP-DTW-BUF and the return flights either the same or direct. Got a 5-banger coming up: MSP-IND-DTW-BUF-DTW-MSP. That'll get me to Gold, and I have the rest of the year to make Plat.

I stay in a hotel at a a negoiated rate (negotiated by me) and, since I'm a platinum w/Marriott, they treat me very well. It's nice location with plenty of stuff right nearby and the traffic into the office in the morning is pretty light (as opposed to the rest of Minneapolis -- will they ever finish the construction?)

One thing you learn (especially if you're paying for everything as I do) is to work every angle possible to keep the costs down. I work deals on the parking, hotel rates, meals, everything. If only I could get the airline costs down I'd be happy, but they are what they are.

No, the family (just my wife, now) is not overjoyed at everything, but the European trips help and, like spotwelder, if I don't work I don't get paid.

Finally, we work a 9/80 plan: 5 days one week, 4 days the next. So I'm sleeping in my own bed 7 out of every 14 days. That helps a lot, too. It's also why I don't bother with an apartment.

Live in Boston, work in NYC. Look for me every Monday morning on the 600a US Shuttle, and on Friday afternoons on the 300p flight.

I used to commute, sometimes with extra trips from my "away" location as well. On the whole didnt mind although sometimes the redeyes would get annoying, and the odd weeks with only half a day or less at "home" before turning around yet again.

Very interesting posts. A lot to think about. Did I misunderstand the poster who commuted from UK to Oz?