Eight years of international at United Newark: the jet lag maths, the trips I bid for and the trips I avoid, and how the body copes
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#1 United Newark, eight years, international lines for the last five, and my username is only half a joke. This is a post about jet lag as a working condition, for the people who imagine long haul as glamorous and are about to find out it is a physiology problem.
The trips
Newark international means Europe (London, Frankfurt, Paris, Lisbon, Rome, and so on), the Middle East (Tel Aviv, Dubai), South America (São Paulo, Buenos Aires), and some of the India and Asia flying. A typical Europe trip: out in the evening, arrive early morning, 24 hours in a hotel, back the next morning, home that afternoon. Three days, one night in a bed that is not yours, and a time zone swing of five to six hours each way.
The jet lag maths
The body adjusts about an hour a day. A six hour swing takes most of a week to fully adjust. A three day trip means you never adjust. You spend the layover half awake at 3pm and wide awake at 3am, then fly home and do it in reverse. Do that three times a month and your body is never in any time zone. That is the job, and after eight years I can tell you it does not get easier, you just get better at managing it.
What I bid for
Longer layovers over shorter ones, always. A 48 hour London beats a 24 hour London because you get one real sleep. Trips that go out at night and come back in the morning, because I sleep better on the outbound. Two long trips and a lot of days off rather than four short ones. And the same city repeatedly, because knowing which hotel room faces away from the street matters more than seeing a new place.
What I avoid
The back to back Europe turns with a 24 hour layover and a day between. Anything that lands at 5am and expects you to sleep at 6am. And South America in the pattern where the outbound is a day flight, because I cannot sleep on a day flight and I arrive with nothing left.
How the body copes, or does not
What works for me: staying on home time for 24 hour layovers (do not try to adjust, just nap and stay up), blackout curtains I bring myself, no alcohol on the layover in the first year and very little since, melatonin on the way home, and exercise in the afternoon of the layover even when it feels impossible. What does not work: trying to sleep the whole layover, drinking to sleep, and pretending you are 25 when you are 33.
The cumulative part: after five years of international my sleep at home is worse than it was. I am not the only one. The senior crew talk about it openly and the company talks about it in fatigue management terms. It is a real cost and you should know it before you bid international because it looks better.
Why I still bid it
The days off. International lines give me twelve to fifteen days off a month in blocks, and on those days I am home, properly. The per diem is better. The flying is calmer, one long service and a quiet cabin instead of four full turns. And I like the cities, even the ones I only see from a hotel gym.
For new crew thinking about international
Do domestic first, hold a line, learn your body. Then bid international with your eyes open. And buy the blackout curtains.
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#2 United SFO, international to Asia, and the Asia version of this is worse: twelve to sixteen hour swings and the body just gives up trying. Everything Jim says about staying on home time for short layovers is right. The blackout curtains are the single best purchase I have made in this job.
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#3 Virgin Atlantic, 14 years long haul, and I could have written this from the London end. The cumulative sleep damage is real and under discussed. I sleep worse at 44 than I did at 30 and the job is most of the reason. I would still do it again.
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#4 Virgin too, nine years, and the 'know which hotel room faces away from the street' line is the truest thing in this post. I have a spreadsheet. I am not ashamed.
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#5 United LAX, and I want to add the Australia and Asia flying from the west coast to Jim's list: a 15 hour flight, a 30 hour layover, and a body that does not know what day it is for a week after. I bid it for the per diem and the days off and I regret it every time I land.
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#7 Condor, leisure long haul from Frankfurt, and the Caribbean pattern is the same shape at a smaller scale. The one thing I would add for European readers: our union rules on rest after long haul are stricter than the US ones, and even so the cumulative cost is real.
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#8 Reserve at JFK and this is what I am building the seniority for. Reading it, I am not sure whether to be more excited or less. Both, apparently.
