“Do you do like doing overnights?”
“Oh not anymore, I don’t think I’ve done one in at least a year. I can never sleep well if I’m not in my own bed and prefer to be home for the kids. Every now and then I might bid for one but mostly I try to work longer single days to get my hours up so I get more days at home”
I was definitely naïve, because when I first started as a short haul flight attendant I assumed that each time I went to work I’d be returning home the same day. As a domestic flightie, I assumed, I’d work between 2-4 short sectors and return to base at the end of a duty. How wrong I was.
Luckily I soon realised overnights are one of the best parts of the job. Not only did it allow you to stay in a nice hotel free of charge, it also came with a tax-free daily travel allowance (DTA) paid for each hour you were away. Overnights were also a nice little way to break up the week with a change of scene, relax, do some shopping, or depending on the crew, go out for a nice meal.
Sure, it was mostly the same city (Perth) I stayed overnight because returning to base would make the day too long based on my airline’s current EBA. Depending on the base however and the airline, there were short haul flight attendants who stayed in a variety of cities around Australia, and even occasionally New Zealand. We were all jealous of Sydney crew who had daily Bali overnights, and often even got temporarily given other international routes. For newbies like myself however, we’d have to be pretty lucky to get them.
How many times a month did I stay overnight?
I’d say about 50 per cent of the shifts I did were overnights. I overnighted 4 times a month or about once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, with the rest of my duties being day trips. Because an overnight included a tax free allowance in your pay, they definitely ended up being generally more lucrative than working a day trip. Depending on the type of flying in that is offered in your base, some crew would overnight more and less than others.
Over the busy Christmas roster I got 8 overnights, including 3 Perth, 1 Cairns, 2 Canberra, 2 Adelaide. Needless to say I was pretty excited, I knew I’d likely not get to many of these places for quite a while so I definitely made the most of it and explored. Sleep could come later.
One of the best trips I ever got as a domestic flight attendant was a 3 day trip that I got called out for off reserve with overnights in two different cities. It totalled 8 flights over 3 days, lots of flying hours plus DTA so I earned a lot from this trip as well as darted all over the country. It went like this:
Day 1: BNE-ADL overnight (approx. 12 hours)
Day 2: ADL-ASP-ADL-MEL-CBR overnight (approx. 15 hours)
Day 3:CBR-MEL-SYD-BNE
Overnights or Day Returns? What Do Domestic Flight Attendants Prefer?
The answer here is as varied as crew are themselves. For those living further away from the airport, the answer is likely overnights as it means less driving to and forth, especially if it’s a short 5-hour shift (Sydney return and back.) For many with young families however, the longer day trips are popular.
Some of the most lucrative trips among the more senior crew were 4 sector days. Personally, I’d rather work shorter trips more frequently than do four flights in one day. Lets just say by the last flight, you pretty much were sick of people.
Some crew swap their overnights for turnarounds/multi sector day trips, but this sometimes is easier said than done. I knew a flight attendant that ended up quitting because she didn’t want to stay overnight anymore, and as much she could try and work her roster to avoid them, finding someone who could swap was tricky. Other airlines however rarely have overnights and work longer days so if staying overnight is something that concerns you rather than appeals to you, I’d suggest definitely looking at working for those. Regular overnights can make certain things difficult like going to evening sport training sessions a few times a week, or if you’re single, even having a pet.
And the Possibility of Unscheduled Overnights…
The world of aviation means you never know what could happen in an airport or the skies. Bad weather could see you grounded and have to stay overnight in a city where you were only supposed to have a 50 minute turn around. Also often there are many other disruptions that could see you not able to return to your home base as planned. From airport strikes, airline reservation systems going offline and even mechanical issues that ground the plane, In my short stint as a domestic flight attendant, I experienced the thrill of an unscheduled overnight only once on a standard evening Sydney return.
Fog began to roll in as I signed on for my duty, and by the time we were supposed to head back to Brisbane, the fog was so thick back home visibility was shot and our entire crew had to stay in Sydney for the night. We had only the clothes on our back but we loved it! The excitement was real and so was the feeling of adventure. I took off my tie and jacket, the only things that really gave away I was wearing a uniform, and headed to the hotel bar!
Overnights and Day Trips – Best of both worlds?
Luckily, as naïve as I was about the fact I thought I’d be sleeping in my own bed every night as a domestic flightie, I mostly enjoyed overnights and had a good mix of day trips and overnight duties on each roster. I’ve heard that for short haul crew at other airlines, overnights are extremely rare, and it also depends on the location of your base. If you live in a remote city like Perth, most of your flying is going to be transcontinental (i.e. longer flights) so overnights when you fly to the east coast are pretty much are a given.
My advice? I’d say as a domestic flightie, enjoy the fact that getting overnights is having the best of both worlds. You get to stay in different cities and nice hotels for free but still know many of your duties you get to come home at the end of the day, like you would in a ‘normal’ job.
Also, in the airline world you never know when things could change and overnights could be a thing of the past, so enjoy them while they are around.
“How’s your roster this month? Seems like everyone just got given day returns and reserve spans. Where have all the overnights gone? I’m never gonna bitch about overnighting in Perth again. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone!”
