After living in Okinawa for three years, I was so excited to go home to the states for the summer before our next move. Sometimes things don’t turn out as planned, and we decided to stay in Okinawa one more year. This meant that we would have to pay for our airline tickets to go home. With a family of 6, that is VERY expensive. Another option would be to take a Space-Available military flight home. These are basically military operational flights that have extra seats. The military mission is always the priority, but military members and their dependents may get on the flight free of charge. I was always afraid to try this because I didn’t want to get stuck someplace with all my boys. I wish I had tried it sooner because we had a great experience.

Space-A Travel Categories

There are 6 categories for passengers from Category 1-6 with one being the highest priority.

• Category 1 Emergency leave. (Space-A Travel is allowed on a round-trip basis in connection with serious illness, death, or impending death of a member of the immediate family)
• Category 2 Environmental Morale Leave (EML) (Sponsors on environmental and morale leave (EML) and accompanied family members)
• Category 3 Ordinary leave. (family members with a deployed Sponsor)
• Category 4 Unaccompanied dependents on EML. (Unaccompanied family members traveling on EML orders)
• Category 5 Command sponsored unaccompanied dependents, Permissive Temporary Duty and students.
• Category 6 Retirees.

Space-A Flying Process

1. Space-A Signup: This is so important that you do this as early as possible. Your priority within a Space-A category is based on this signup date. Having signed up early is what allowed my big family to have a greater chance of getting on a flight. You want to sign up with every passenger terminal that you might travel through. You are signing up to compete for any flight with Space-A seats at a given terminal. The easiest way to sign up is by email or the Take-a-Hop app. You may sign up with multiple terminals at once. I found all the emails on facebook by searching the different passenger terminals I might be flying through. I sent a mass email to every terminal. Some terminals will not confirm your sign up so be sure to save your email as confirmation. You may sign up as early as 90 days before you want to travel. So be sure to do this as early as possible. Active duty cannot sign up until they are on leave. (Brandon was not flying home with us so we were a Category 4 and we had signed up a month early from when we expected to travel.)

2. Finding Flights: The easiest way to find flights is on facebook. Every passenger terminal will release their flight schedules 72 hours in advance. Keep in mind that these flight can change and cancel last minute so you have to be flexible and patient. It will also tell you what time you need to be present for roll call and how may seats they expect to be available. You can also call the terminal to get further information about a flight.

3. Check-In (Marking yourself present): You have to mark yourself present before roll call so that you can compete for seats. Arriving one hour prior to roll call is plenty of time but you may do this up to 24 hours in advance. Some of the terminals prefer you don’t do this too early because it can get messed up in their system. Most terminals will display a list of all the passengers who have marked themselves present so you want to check this list a few minutes before roll call to make sure everything is correct.

4. Roll Call: The time listed on the passenger terminal facebook page is the time of roll call. Be sure to monitor this time on Facebook because it can change according to the mission. The staff will announce that roll call is about to begin. They will call everyone up to the desk and let everyone know how may seats are available. They will then begin to call passengers according to the highest priority and date of sign up. If they call your name, you have been selected for the flight. You will need to show your military ID and all your paperwork (all dependents 10 years and older must show their ID). They will then have you proceed to the check in desk.

5. Check in bags/order meals: All of your passengers and their luggage must be present at this time. On most flights, you can check 2 bags up to 70 lbs each. You can also check car seats. During baggage check in, you can also order meals if you will be on a long flight. The meals were a little over $5, and they had a lot of food in them. I ended up ordering 5 of them for all my boys and myself. It was a LOT of food. Each box lunch had 2 peanut butter sandwiches, chips, a drink, fruit, and cereal bars. After checking all your bags in, you are officially on that flight and the staff will tell you the approximate boarding time, but it can change. I found that most flights left about 2-3 hours from the roll call time.

6. Boarding: Soon after check-in, they will announce boarding. You will go through security just like you would at a regular airport. You will then remain in a secure area until it is time to board the plane. There are usually vending machines in this area for any last minute drinks or snacks for the flight.

7. Flight: If you decide to fly on the Patriot Express it will be a very similar experience to commercial flights. They have regular seats and in-flight service. If you fly on a military aircraft your experience will be very different. Also, be sure to wear closed toe shoes because it is required on military aircraft. During our Space-A experience, we flew on a C-130 (huge cargo plane with jump seats on the sides and middle), a C-5 military plane (this plane did have some regular seats but you faced backwards), and a C-17 plane which was my favorite (cargo plane that had jump seats on the sides)

8. Arriving at your destination: Once you arrive at your destination, you will get off the plane and wait for your luggage. Some flights might just be a layover and they will usually let you off to grab a drink or snack inside the secure area of the terminal while you wait for the plane to be ready to leave again. Most of the passenger terminals are close to the base hotels so if you get stranded or you are waiting for a flight the next day you can usually get a room for the night. They are very inexpensive and only about $70/night.

Our Space-A Experience

I had been planning to leave as soon as the boys were out of school for the summer. Our plans were to head home to Texas. I was trying to get a flight as close to Texas as possible because Brandon was not flying with us so we would be a category 4 on EML, and once we made it to the US that is as far as we can go on Space-A. If your spouse is deployed you can Space-A within the US. Hawaii and Alaska are still considered overseas so you can continue on from these locations without your sponsor. I found a flight that left the day after the boys were out of school that went From Kadena-Yokota-Alaska-Oklahoma. I couldn’t believe it! There was also a lot of available seats on the flight. We did make it on the flight, but once we got to Yokota they could not take any space-A passengers with them the rest of the way. The next morning there was a flight to Alaska and one to Travis Air Base (California). So we got a room at the hotel on base and showed up for roll call the next morning for the Alaska flight. Well, the Alaska flight got rerouted back to Kadena so I decided to try for the Travis flight later that afternoon. We made it on that flight! However, once we got to California that was as far as we could go on Space-A. Brandon had a lot of airline miles from traveling so much while living overseas so we were able to use them to get home. We also decided to explore San Francisco for a couple of days while we were there.

Brandon eventually joined us in Texas so he was with us on our return trip home. We were trying to decided whether to fly out of Seattle on the Patriot Express or to try and get a flight out of Travis. We decided since it was still peak PCS season and the Patriot is how everyone PCSing gets overseas we would try Travis. We got so lucky. We flew to Travis with airline miles again, and we ended up staying one night at the hotel on base. The next morning there was a flight that went from Travis-Alaska-Kadena. We made it on that flight and it was the easiest flight ever. We only had a 45 minute layover in Alaska, and it was on a C-17 so the boys could just lay out in the middle of the plane and sleep. The crew on this flight were amazing! They let Bryant in the cockpit to watch take off, and Colt in the cockpit to watch landing. It was the best experience! Here are a few pictures from all our adventures at home after being overseas for three years!

What to Pack on a Space-A flight

1. Make sure you have all your travel documents, military IDs, and passports.
2. Dress in warm comfortable clothes. The flights can be very cold and you want to have enough layers on and be comfortable.
3. Pack a small lightweight sleeping pad or mattress. I wish I had brought these for my boys. This is a must if you are on one of the cargo planes. You can use this to lay out on once you are in the air. You can also bring blankets and pillows to be even more comfortable. The crew did provide us with basic travel pillows and blankets.
4. Travel Pillow
5. Travel blanket or sleeping bag
6. Head phones or ear protection. I really love the noise-cancelling heaphones
7. Portable Charger for all your devices
8. Load lots of games and movies on devices for kids
9. Bring snacks or purchase some in the vending machines in the passenger terminals.

I am so glad that I finally had the courage to try Space-A travel. It is such a great benefit for military families! Especially for those of us living overseas with large families which makes it very expensive to get back home to see family. I am by no means an expert at Space-A travel, but I had a lot of my friends asking me how I did it so I thought this would be the best way to share our experience. Adventure Awaits…go for it!!