Back in the day, cabin crew for major international airlines used to do really long trips. It was not all that uncommon for people to be away for weeks at a time for work.
The advent of alliances and codeshares means that these long trips are virtually unheard of today. In fact, three to five days would now be considered a long trip. What does one of these long trips from the past look like?
A Really Long British Airways Trip
British Airways used to serve quite a number of stations in Australia and New Zealand. This resulted in some very long duty times, and you can see an example below. This is from a BA roster from the 1990s.
Starting in London, our intrepid crew member would see overnight stays in many cities along the way. Singapore (SIN), Brisbane (BNE), Auckland (AKL), and Perth (PER) are all visited on this 21 day trip.
- London time and plenty of overnight stays on this roster.
These days things are quite different. When flying from London to Sydney, British Airways crew stop overnight in Singapore once each time on the way out and also have an overnight in Sydney.
The 1990s roster has far more days down route, with more time overnight each time. Of course, with so many different routes being served (Auckland to Perth, Brisbane to Auckland, Sydney to Brisbane – all long gone!) it’s perhaps not too surprising.
Overall Thoughts
I’m wondering what the longest trips are these days. Five days away is the most I personally know of, but it could be more at some airlines, I don’t really know.
My father knew a Qantas crew member back in the 1980s and 1990s who was one of his clients. He would often be away for three weeks at a time and actually had plenty of money, as he owned or part owned racehorses. The time away is reduced these days and as is the remuneration.
Were you cabin crew flying these long trips? Would you prefer these or shorter ones? Anyone know what the longest trips are these days? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Aero Icarus via Wikimedia Commons.
Roster via 1Aturnleft on FlyerTalk.
Those multi-stop, globe-spanning trips looked quite adventurous back then. 21 day assignments just to end up where you started. Must have been a blast. Conversely, a former Ozark Airlines FA friend of mine remembers many puddle-jumping itineraries such as St. Louis-Peoria-Cedar Rapids-Rochester-Minneapolis-St. Louis in one day. For those who may not know, the Minneapolis-St. Louis segment is 448 miles. Now add 3 stops between those cities and you can imagine what av-geeky fun that would have been.
Those multi-stops in the USA were quite common back in the day. Very short flights with lots and lots of stops – must have been great fun! Not sure which would have been better, to be honest. I imagine I’d have liked it all.
I think the times listed are all local London times – so they arrived in Singapore on that first day at 2:05am London time – 9:05am Singapore time. The following Tuesday, their duty time resumed at 10:25am, arriving in Sydney at 7:45pm Sydney time. It looks like they did that so they could more easily calculate the duty time. Thanks for sharing, this is very cool! I often wonder how this works, especially with some of the the more interesting routings that have come about because of COVID. I’ve also wondered with some of these older tag on type routes… Read more »
Exactly right regarding the times. Not sure I would have been too enthused to calculate the local times myself, but I guess that was second nature to people doing it regularly. As far as I am aware, crews mainly stay together for an entire trip, so they would have all had 21 days together, for better or worse. There were overseas crew bases, but I don’t know exactly where back then. Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad you enjoyed it! The rosters look quite similar today, at least with the ones I’ve seen, so not too much has changed… Read more »