The crew who fly with their partner at the same airline: how couples handle the roster, the bidding, the layovers and the small world of the crew room
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#1 SAS, and my partner is also SAS cabin crew, which is common enough at every airline that the crew room has a name for it and rare enough that nobody writes about how it works. Here is the crew couple life from inside one, with what the other couples at my base do.
How it happens
The crew room is a small world and the layovers are where people meet. Every base has a dozen couples and several marriages that started at a briefing. The airlines mostly have no rule against it, a few have a rule about not flying together on the same aircraft in supervisory roles, and one or two have a rule about disclosing it.
The roster
The hardest part. Two rosters, published on the same day, that do not know about each other. Some airlines allow couples to link their bids so the days off align (the Scandinavian carriers do, some of the US carriers do through the bidding systems, the Gulf carriers mostly do not). Where linking exists, the couple bids for the same days off and gets them at the seniority of the junior partner. Where it does not, the couple swaps constantly and relies on the goodwill of the base.
Flying together
Some couples bid the same trips and fly together, which is allowed at most airlines below the purser level. Some deliberately never do, because a bad day at work should not be a bad day at home. The couples who fly together say the layovers are a holiday. The couples who do not say the separation is what keeps the relationship. Both are right for different people.
The layovers apart
A crew couple is apart a lot: one in Bangkok, one in New York, both awake at 3am in the wrong time zone, messaging. The couples who last have a rule about the message frequency that is not too much and not too little, and they trust the crew world's small size, because everyone knows everyone and the layover behaviour of a crew member with a partner at the base is known by the whole base within a week.
The money
Two cabin crew salaries with the allowances is a good household income at a legacy carrier and a fine one at a low cost carrier. Two Gulf salaries with one accommodation allowance (the Gulf couples often move out to a shared allowance flat) is a saving machine. Two part time contracts at KLM or SAS is the Dutch and Scandinavian model of raising children on the job.
Children
The part where the linked bidding and the part time contracts matter most. Two rosters and a child need a fixed pattern for at least one partner and a family nearby or a paid solution. The couples with children at my base are all on some combination of part time and fixed pattern, and the ones without those options have one partner on the ground.
The small world
The crew room knows your relationship, your argument and your reconciliation before you do. The couples who last are the ones who are private in the crew room and honest at home. That is the whole rule.
Crew couples at other airlines: how does your airline handle the bidding, and would you fly together or never?
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#2 SAS Stockholm, married to a SAS pilot, which is the other version of this. The linked bidding exists for cabin crew couples and not for cabin crew and flight deck. We swap. The base is kind. The small world rule is exactly right.
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#3 Delta Atlanta, and my partner is Delta at the same base. We can bid similar lines by seniority and we never fly together on purpose. A bad flight stays at the airport. Two years, works.
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#4 Emirates, and my partner is at the same airline, and the Gulf version is: no linked bidding, constant swaps, and the shared allowance flat that Lotte mentions, which is the reason we could afford to move out of the buildings. The crew room knew about us before we did.
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#5 @cassieatl the never fly together rule is the one I hear most from the couples who are still couples at year ten. Noted, and slightly worrying, because we fly together every month.