I'm used to seeing flight crews at hotels that are within, say, 5-20 mins from airports for obvious reasons.

I am currently staying in Stamford, CT, which is about an hour from JFK and the other NYC airports and about an hour from a smaller regional airport that is presumably only domestic flights in CT. I've seen flight crews from JetBlue (JFK based tags) and Etihad (with JFK tags) getting dropped off at this hotel, and enjoying the lounge. This seems like an inconvenient location due to traffic, weather, etc.

Is it common to house flight crews so far from airports?

An hour, could be 2, depending on the Van Wyck. Awful long ways away. I grew up in Stamford and was NYC based, that’d be a terrible ride.

That is indeed far but in the end, budgets are involved. The company might get a really good deal at the hotel.

Some crew hotels are close to the airport but personally I prefer to have a longer ride and stay in a town than being stuck in a "hotel park". Not applicable in the OP's case, of course. Plenty of nice options closer than Stamford.

Could also mean they're on a 30+ hour layover.

Some airlines have contracts that have different hotels for different length layovers. If it's a short layover, they'll put you up near the airport. If you have a long layover, it'll be somewhere further away.

This isn’t at all uncommon in Los Angeles. Plenty of longhaul crews stay in Torrance, which, depending on traffic and departure terminal at LAX, can be quite a drive.

QF crews used to stay in Newport Beach.

IIRC most contracts state an airport hotel is only sufficient for 1 night. Anything longer will require a city centre hotel with a minimum amount of space, a desk, aircon, etc. The type of hotel that will cost you a kidney in the middle of NYC, so they get dumped somewhere cheaper.

It's really depending on what is available. In my current job I'm away from my 'home' for 21 days and then I have 7 consecutive days off at home (which is necessary due to the nature of our operation, but it also convenient to have 7 days off in a row for many pilots). The company will provide accommodation during those 21 days. In my current base the company put us in apartments that are around 55 to 45 minutes away from the airport. In an other company base the accommodation is only around 15 minutes away from the airport, but many crews prefer to be further away from the airport if it means that they are in the city center. Obviously this is different if you don't stay in the place for 21 days but only for a minimum rest overnight where it is important to get enough sleep...

Quite a lot of airline crews have 'city centre hotels' in their contracts. Not as many as it used to be, but it certainly still exists.

Which can be a pain for passengers. I was recently delayed on a Lufthansa departure from Paris because the crew was stuck in traffic, apparently after staying in the city centre.

An Air New Zealand crew told me once that they stay in the city center of Shanghai, 2 hours from the airport in rush-hour traffic.

At the hotel by the ATR simulator center in Neusiedl am See, it isn't uncommon to see flight crews from both Bratislava and Vienna overnighting.

I have been based for several months on ACMI contracts at airports where the nearest decent hotel was 45 minutes away. At one place I used to stop in eastern europe, the morning arrival coincided with rush hour, making it a 1 hour ride to the hotel.


You must keep in mind that we are away from home for extended periods. We don't have the possibility of just popping out in the fridge for a sandwich, we have to go to a restaurant. Likewise for gyms, exercise, entertainment and so on. The standards need to reflect this. I worked for a short period for an Irish airline that thought it was acceptable to put us in a run down, noisy 3 star hotel in the middle of nowhere on a former Polish airbase. Needless to say, they couldn't hold on to people.

Most of the airlines I have worked for had contracts mandated a layover of 15 hours or less were at the airport and over 15 hours were downtown. All the hotels had to have 24-hour room service, a restaurant open 24 hours and laundry return within 8 hours. The downtown hotels had to have the same facilities plus a gym or exercise room open 24 hours.

johns624 comment was what we had. Longer layover got you a nice hotel in a good place and shorter one got you the airport hotel . We used to fly into OAK and then ride to Walnut Creek for the layover. Great layover but a very long drive. Paris was the same we had 3 different hotels downtown and one by the airport in Roissy. During Christmas, protests, and other extreme events times from CDG to the hotel pushed 1 hr 50 min. HKG & KIX both had very long drives.

The JetBlue crew was probably flying out of White Plains.

Sometimes going to the hotel over an hour away is faster than staying at a hotel near the airport.

For example. Our Los Angeles overnight hotel is in Huntington Beach. It takes about a hour to get there. A car service picks is up.

Staying at a hotel next to LAX waiting for the hotel shuttle. Well it takes an hour to get to the airport hotel just down the street.

N353SK wrote:

The JetBlue crew was probably flying out of White Plains.

That's the most likely explanation.

Way too risky in terms of variable traffic to house JFK crews up there.

RyanAirB737 wrote:

I'm used to seeing flight crews at hotels that are within, say, 5-20 mins from airports for obvious reasons.

I am currently staying in Stamford, CT, which is about an hour from JFK and the other NYC airports and about an hour from a smaller regional airport that is presumably only domestic flights in CT. I've seen flight crews from JetBlue (JFK based tags) and Etihad (with JFK tags) getting dropped off at this hotel, and enjoying the lounge. This seems like an inconvenient location due to traffic, weather, etc.

Is it common to house flight crews so far from airports?

Traffic, weather etc is accounted for when the time to pick up said flight crews is scheduled.
In regards to that Lufthansa crew in Paris, must have been a pretty bad traffic jam or accident to keep them from getting there on time with all the buffers in place

CX crew used to stay in mid town Manhattan, to/from JFK can be at least an hour depending on time of day.

Cubsrule wrote:

This isn’t at all uncommon in Los Angeles. Plenty of longhaul crews stay in Torrance, which, depending on traffic and departure terminal at LAX, can be quite a drive.

Stays in Los Angeles can literally be all over the place. Santa Monica, downtown Los Angeles, Long Beach. China Eastern has contract hotels located in San Gabriel.

RyanAirB737 wrote:

I'm used to seeing flight crews at hotels that are within, say, 5-20 mins from airports for obvious reasons.

I am currently staying in Stamford, CT, which is about an hour from JFK and the other NYC airports and about an hour from a smaller regional airport that is presumably only domestic flights in CT. I've seen flight crews from JetBlue (JFK based tags) and Etihad (with JFK tags) getting dropped off at this hotel, and enjoying the lounge. This seems like an inconvenient location due to traffic, weather, etc.

Is it common to house flight crews so far from airports?

LATAM also places GRU crews in Stamford. It seems like a ridiculously long ground transport from JFK so they must be getting quite a deal on that block of rooms. Unfortunate for the crew who would like to enjoy NYC... that is unless they are bringing empty bags to load up at Stamford Town Centre.

The JetBlue crews in Stamford are operating out of Westchester Airport (20 minutes away), not JFK/LGA.

trueblew wrote:

RyanAirB737 wrote:

I'm used to seeing flight crews at hotels that are within, say, 5-20 mins from airports for obvious reasons.

I am currently staying in Stamford, CT, which is about an hour from JFK and the other NYC airports and about an hour from a smaller regional airport that is presumably only domestic flights in CT. I've seen flight crews from JetBlue (JFK based tags) and Etihad (with JFK tags) getting dropped off at this hotel, and enjoying the lounge. This seems like an inconvenient location due to traffic, weather, etc.

Is it common to house flight crews so far from airports?

LATAM also places GRU crews in Stamford. It seems like a ridiculously long ground transport from JFK so they must be getting quite a deal on that block of rooms. Unfortunate for the crew who would like to enjoy NYC... that is unless they are bringing empty bags to load up at Stamford Town Centre.

The JetBlue crews in Stamford are operating out of Westchester Airport (20 minutes away), not JFK/LGA.

Depending on how long their layover is, Manhattan Grand Central is just one hour away from Stamford. Just hop on the metro North new haven line. It’s not that hard to get to New York City.

On our layovers in Hartford Connecticut where we stay in Springfield Massachusetts, I find my way to New York City and spend my overnight there.

How long a layover? That’s a 3-hour train ride, if all goes well.

Woodreau wrote:

trueblew wrote:

RyanAirB737 wrote:

I'm used to seeing flight crews at hotels that are within, say, 5-20 mins from airports for obvious reasons.

I am currently staying in Stamford, CT, which is about an hour from JFK and the other NYC airports and about an hour from a smaller regional airport that is presumably only domestic flights in CT. I've seen flight crews from JetBlue (JFK based tags) and Etihad (with JFK tags) getting dropped off at this hotel, and enjoying the lounge. This seems like an inconvenient location due to traffic, weather, etc.

Is it common to house flight crews so far from airports?

LATAM also places GRU crews in Stamford. It seems like a ridiculously long ground transport from JFK so they must be getting quite a deal on that block of rooms. Unfortunate for the crew who would like to enjoy NYC... that is unless they are bringing empty bags to load up at Stamford Town Centre.

The JetBlue crews in Stamford are operating out of Westchester Airport (20 minutes away), not JFK/LGA.

Depending on how long their layover is, Manhattan Grand Central is just one hour away from Stamford. Just hop on the metro North new haven line. It’s not that hard to get to New York City.

It's also not that hard to put crews in New York City instead of bussing them 1-1.5 hours to a dumpy suburb lacking in any culture. You can tell a lot about how an airline feels about its employees by where they decide to lodge them.

trueblew wrote:

Woodreau wrote:

trueblew wrote:

LATAM also places GRU crews in Stamford. It seems like a ridiculously long ground transport from JFK so they must be getting quite a deal on that block of rooms. Unfortunate for the crew who would like to enjoy NYC... that is unless they are bringing empty bags to load up at Stamford Town Centre.

The JetBlue crews in Stamford are operating out of Westchester Airport (20 minutes away), not JFK/LGA.

Depending on how long their layover is, Manhattan Grand Central is just one hour away from Stamford. Just hop on the metro North new haven line. It’s not that hard to get to New York City.

It's also not that hard to put crews in New York City instead of bussing them 1-1.5 hours to a dumpy suburb lacking in any culture. You can tell a lot about how an airline feels about its employees by where they decide to lodge them.

That dumpy suburb might mean a much nicer hotel with lots of facilities. Plenty of our crew would rather stay in a nice hotel with nice facilities compared to a smaller room in a downtown hotel where they are "forced" to go out. Different strokes.

That “dumpy” suburb has a median home sale price of $474,000 and is on the so-called CT Gold Coast, as rich a neighborhood as you’ll find.

GF

I just had a flashback og another looong drive to the hotel. A EWR layover was in Summit Nj at the Grand Summit Hotel. An old place that started as a fox hunting club.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

That “dumpy” suburb has a median home sale price of $474,000 and is on the so-called CT Gold Coast, as rich a neighborhood as you’ll find.

GF

Greenwich may be as rich a neighborhood as you'll find, but Stamford is not. And $474k is not indicative of a wealthy area. Stamford has a lot of crime and low-income areas.

trueblew wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

That “dumpy” suburb has a median home sale price of $474,000 and is on the so-called CT Gold Coast, as rich a neighborhood as you’ll find.

GF

Greenwich may be as rich a neighborhood as you'll find, but Stamford is not. And $474k is not indicative of a wealthy area. Stamford has a lot of crime and low-income areas.

Yeah, you’re thinking of Stratford, not Stamford. Stamford is one of the safest cities in America