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Have a hankering to experience the benefit of military aircraft travel after you retire? Read all about our first experience with it here.  

After driving north from Los Angeles to Travis Air Force Base, we had a wait of several days before an available flight popped up to Okinawa via Oahu. This was actually fine by us as we were able to spend some time catching up via a fast computer in a language we understood, mail home gear only needed in South America, pick up a few necessities, etc. If you have to be stuck in billeting on a military base, there are much worse places than Travis for sure. At this military hotel, there was a petite spa, multiple-machine laundry facilities on every floor of every wing (24 hours a day). A huge wireless access lounge and patio with fireplace, large flat screen T.V, comfortable seating, snack bar, etc. There’s also a 24 hour business center with complimentary computer access and printing capabilities. It’s also within reasonable walking distance to the MAC terminal (You’ll want this when you have to run down at the crack of dawn to check and be present for availability roll call.), B-EX, Commissary and Class Six facilities, including the food court.

Rooms were large with a good sized mini fridge / freezer combo, toaster, microwave and full dish set for two.  Large beds, lounge around seating, desk area and cable TV with vcr/dvd machines available as part of the package.  The massage services were very professional as well.  This would be a great place to day trip into the wine country. If we hadn’t been so behind on biz and job search stuff, we might have squeezed this in. The price? About 30 USD per night.

First flight? Travis to Hickam on a refueling tanker. I had expected this to be swinging web seats and cargo pallets, but since it’s a fairly regular flight that lots of space A people take, they actually had temporarily installed commercial airline - type seating with tray tables.

Obviously, there’s no in-flight movie service, but if you order the boxed lunch service (under 4 bucks and apparently much better than they used to be, according to David) ti comes with a couple of beverages, sandwich, snacks and fruit. They also do a couple of extra beverage and snack passes. An extra perk? This aircraft comes equipped with two commercial style airplane toilets. (You’ll realize why this excites me when I get the description of the Okinawa to Bangkok leg.) They also had basic blankets and pillows, so with a couple of books, writing materials and ear plugs (definitely necessary on all military aircraft I’ve been on so far) we were all set.

Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii - Billeting here was adequate at best, and no where near the quality we had at Travis. The price was about 27 dollars a night. Cheap enough, but absolutely no extra amenities (note that Travis AFB was only 3 dollars more per night and was loaded with extras) and only dorm style showers some distance down the hall.

Also, not a convenient walk at all to the MAC terminal and B-EX / food court options. The redeeming detail? Since the flight was actually bound for Okinawa and we were only laying over there, we knew we were getting the same plane with the same crew (they were helpful and fun . . . something that doesn’t always happen on military flights either) the next day.

Also, there are much nicer military places to stay on Hawaii, but we needed as close to the MAC terminal as possible. You could use this leg just to get to Hawaii for free and hang out on the islands having a blast. But for us, it was on to Japan. The next flight leg was as comfortable as the first, as I said.

Arriving in Okinawa . . . now the fun begins. First of all, for some unknown reason, at Kadena Air Force Base the Japanese government does not  have customs and immigration offices / staff at the military airport. (At Yakota in Tokyo, everything is taken care of there, just like at a regular airport. However, that’s not where we were.)

So here was the drill: Get your bags, get herded onto a military bus and driven to stop #1 off base: Japanese customs. Here, you lug all of your bags with no luggage cart or help off the bus (and in our case the pouring rain as well) and into a tiny airless area to wait in line. Here, you will be thoroughly searched and questioned. Thankfully, we only had backpacks and day packs. One girl was traveling to Korea where her husband was stationed with beaucoup baggage and no travel partner.

After a thorough search and questioning session, you lug all of your bags back to the military bus and get driven to the second off-base location (nowhere near the first), Japanese immigration. Here you will schlep  up two flights of stairs (bonus: you get to leave your big bags on the secure bus this time) to wait in line to get stamped in and provided with an entrance / exit form.

The fun does not end here. Many of the other military flight terminals have at least brochures , base maps and some sort of basic information for where to find the base hotel. Not so here. We did find one map that was photocopied and snagged it while the snagging was good. Then we proceeded to schlep the couple of miles with our packs (some charitable soul gave us a ride after a bit) to the base hotel where they were full due to a TDY arrival of 300 troops. So they mentioned there was another naval hotel closer to the terminal (no signs while we were there) but that place wouldn’t release rooms to space A passengers until later that evening. So we started schlepping back to wait. (Again, someone took pity on us and gave us a ride followed by the hotel people taking pity on us and opening up rooms early.) The only ones available were two single rooms with an adjoining bath. The price? Eight dollars per room for a total of 16 bucks .. . SCORE!!!!

 These rooms came with a ton of complimentary stuff and free laundry facilities. We dropped our stuff and started hoofing it again to one of the on base restaurants . . . Chilli’s . . . can you believe that? They also had several fast food places that were not in walking distance, but that would deliver to your room. However, we had been cooped up forever on the plane and knew were facing possibly another full day of being cooped up within 12 hours. So, we went to Chilli’s and lived it up large with margaritas, beer, munchies . . .

Here was the cool part: For years, David has been wanting flights to open up to Thailand via the military terminals. There was another guy on our flight who has been retired for twenty years and has not found a flight to Thailand from Japan. . . the very next morning there was a flight to Bangkok with ten seats available. Woohoo! We felt like we had won the lottery. The original plan(s) - since we didn’t think we had a snowball’s chance in Hades of getting into Thailand directly, was to either catch the next MAC flight into Tokyo and have to hang out a few days for a military flight to Singapore. From there, we would have hopped a commercial flight to Thailand or another Southeast Asian destination. Or, we would go from Tokyo to Korea on a MAC and then a commercial flight from there. Either way, we would have had a day or two on Okinawa and in Tokyo. No hardship and lots of stuff to see. However, we would pay our dues to snag this Bangkok flight . . .

The next morning, it was up before 4:00 a.m. to shower, pack and hoof it on foot with our bags to the MAC terminal. They normaly don’t open until 6:00, but if there’s an earlier roll call for a flight, you need to be there for the early opening or miss your chance at catching the flight.  Several of us are waiting outside laying on concrete with our bags as pillows only to find out that roll call is delayed. (They didn’t bother to have that on the recorded message we called ahead for.) So we all stay and wait hoping the Okinawa downpours don’t start again.

Finally, the doors open and those us wanting the Bangkok flight pour over to the sign up desk to get registered for the roll call later. Then we have to wait for the roll call later. Then we have to wait for the roll call which is delayed again. A short while later, the roll call is done, and David and I are able to snag the first two slots because at this point, he’s still active duty. However, now we need to check our bags and get back in a taxi for another 24 dollars to drive out the gate and the short distance to Japanese passport control. Bear in mind, the flight’s loading in about 25 minutes and if we don’t make it back in time we not only don’t get the flight, but our bags go on without us. However, we can not get stamped out of the country until we have a confirmation on the flight. They only confirm you in this space available system just before you leave. See the dilemma? At this point, it’s like an episode of the Amazing Race. All teams are trying to find any available taxi and to share the fare if possible. Everyone is breathing down the poor taxi person’s neck to hurry, then wait outside the office while we race up two flights of stairs to get the required stamp, race back down, dive into the taxi like crazy people, and make a mad dash back to the MAC terminal. We all make it with maybe 3-5 minutes to spare and are boarded on as  cargo with no oxygen mask briefing and a bathroom that consists of a bucket on a hinged type of shelf and a surgical curtain attached with rings to a curved pipe up above. If you start bouncing around with turbulence while you’re doing anything technical (ladies, you know what I’m talking about) the only thing to grab is that curtain itself, which will get you nothing but an airborne trip through the open cargo bay of the plane with your wiggly bits flapping in the breeze for all to see.

David’s been wanting to get me on one of these planes for years, and here I am. Wrapped in a scrap of wool they call a blanket, watching my breath in the freezing temperature and trying to read with the pinholes of illumination they call an overhead lighting system. How do military professionals ride in these bloody things for 18 hours a pop?

The end result though, is that we got from the west coast of the U.S. to Bangkok essentially for free and we have a cool new travel war story to tell. In the end, that’s all we really both wanted, and . . . mission accomplished!

Posted on May 14th, 2007 by Myscha Theriault
Filed under: Trips and Destinations