Flying home on leave from Japan. How do our sailors arrange this?
My son is stationed on the GW. He has signed up for leave from the end of December to mid-January. He has not given me any information on how "leave" works and how he gets a flight from Japan to the U.S. Does the Navy provide any flights or finanical help, etc.? Also, when I ask my son if his leave dates are confirmed, he tells me they are not confirmed and not to make any plans until I hear from him. I'm concerned that if I need to cover the financials of the flight, the longer I wait to book a flight, the cost will increase and may become prohibitive. Can anyone enlighten me on this "leave" process? Thanks!
--Michele - (Matt's mom)
lemonelephant
Flights for Leave are on the Sailor or Sailor's family. There is no financial help there. There are Space Available (Space A) Flights, but those have no guarantee. My Sailor was going to do that for his leave last month and he kept checking beginnning about a month before he was to leave and there were LOTS of spaces on flights to and from each of the bases he needed (7-15 average) and then 2 days ahead of his leave there were NONE from his base for the week he wanted to leave, so at that point we decided to go ahead and book his flights both ways and skip the Space A--and yep, it was a lot higher than if he'd booked it earlier. Space A is free, but you risk not getting a flight when you want/need it because people with regular leave are way down on the list for the spaces. You can get better deals online than what the airlines offer as "military discounts" and the online prices were also better than what the Morale, Welfare and Recration people suggested. It seems like his dates were confirmed/approved about a month prior to the leave. I hope this helps.
Oct 8, 2011
Anti M
How leave works: the sailor puts in a request chit for the leave dates he desire. It then goes up his chain of command, getting signatures for approval. This takes a while to get done, and some commands don't want the chits in too early. Also, even approved leave can be cancelled last minute if the ship needs him. They try not to do that, but it can happen. NEVER purchase a plane ticket until the leave dates are 100% approved in writing, and do buy travel insurance.
I always purchased my tickets from Japan to the US through the travel office on base. (I didn't have the internet then, no one did). He should do some comparison shopping, because the deals vary.
Yeah, Space A is NOT reliable, a poor choice for sailors on a schedule.
As for paying for tickets, uh, what has he been doing with his money? He's single and on a ship, he should have more than enough to pay for his own flight. Having been a sailor myself, I don't understand asking parents to pay for the trip home. Just an opinion.
Oct 9, 2011