Time off at other airports
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Time off at other airports
Hi
I apologise in advance if this is the wrong part of the forum
My sister is a FO for BA and she gets 1 day off (at the location that she has flown to) on most flights over 7 hours and I was wondering if this amount of time off is the same across all airlines. I know that there are other threads on this topic, but they are outdated.
Thanks in advance
I apologise in advance if this is the wrong part of the forum
My sister is a FO for BA and she gets 1 day off (at the location that she has flown to) on most flights over 7 hours and I was wondering if this amount of time off is the same across all airlines. I know that there are other threads on this topic, but they are outdated.
Thanks in advance
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Day off is a technical term; not to be confused with off duty rest. Usually 'day off' is at home base and forms part of the working schedule. A few days on the beach somewhere are not usually 'days off' but caused by the airline's schedule. If there is no flight to bring home the next day then you stay there. There are other rules about acclimatising to local time. This might be necessary before making a long flight back home. Much will depend on local agreements. These acclimatisation days are not 'off'. I'm sure BALPA have it stitched up; but things have changed drastically in recent years.
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By 'day off' I suspect Ali is more likely referring to a '24hr slip pattern'.
Not fly to New York Monday, have Tuesday off, fly back Wednesday, but ...
fly to New York Monday (arriving say 1900 local) , depart 2100 local Tuesday , arriving 0900 Wednesday UK time.
So, 24 hours in New York having arrived at UK midnight and ready for bed. Leave hotel about 1830 local (2330 UK) just when ready for bed again for the night flight home and to be greeted by the rising sun at 30W!
All pure glamour! Can't say I miss it much
Not fly to New York Monday, have Tuesday off, fly back Wednesday, but ...
fly to New York Monday (arriving say 1900 local) , depart 2100 local Tuesday , arriving 0900 Wednesday UK time.
So, 24 hours in New York having arrived at UK midnight and ready for bed. Leave hotel about 1830 local (2330 UK) just when ready for bed again for the night flight home and to be greeted by the rising sun at 30W!
All pure glamour! Can't say I miss it much
My sister is a FO for BA and she gets 1 day off (at the location that she has flown to) on most flights over 7 hours
Her 7+ hour one way flight is a 8-9 hour working day, so unless you're working under some insane regulations, doing an "out and back" in one shift isn't an option, she's at least got to have the night off at destination. However the company (any company) want the aircraft turned round ASAP so they're not going to leave it on the ground until she's had her night off, another crew will take it straight back to London. As a result your sister gets a 24 hourish slip whilst she waits for the next day's aircraft ( but as Top Bunk points out it's not quite a "day off", there's a sting in the tail). There are sometimes variations, especially if company has a lot of flights to the destination (e.g. JFK in BA's case) but the answer to your question is generally, yes, that how it works for Longhaul crews at most airlines on "shorter" Longhaul trips.
That said as has been mentioned sometimes the company's schedule demands more time off ( because there isn't a flight every day) or sometimes the flight time is so long that the regulations demand a genuine clear day off/two nights off, between sectors.
Last edited by wiggy; 25th Nov 2014 at 18:35.
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Our (TOM) nightstops (not days off) vary massively. In Summer it's mostly 24-48 hours downroute, in Winter we fly for our European airlines a lot more and night stops are anything from 24 hours to 7 days. The longest trips are 10 days as these will involve various amounts of positioning. For example, we have a run of flights through Winter along the lines of UK - Hamburg - Dominican - New York - Barbados - UK with several days in various locations along the way. This is fairly common for us.
Or we have loads of UK - (insert any Scandi Capitol City) - Thailand for 3-5 days - (Scandi city) to UK.
if we are rostered 10 days away (or more I suppose) we will be given official days off downroute as we are not allowed to work more than 7 days without a day off.
I hope that helps.
Or we have loads of UK - (insert any Scandi Capitol City) - Thailand for 3-5 days - (Scandi city) to UK.
if we are rostered 10 days away (or more I suppose) we will be given official days off downroute as we are not allowed to work more than 7 days without a day off.
I hope that helps.
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Luxury!!!
I did 3 weeks without a day off last September, occasional Blank days on stop overs but that was it. Not too sure on the legality of Blank days but definitely no Rostered days off in that particular period. When you do get one, yes thats right ONE, you may get a blank day before, after or if yer lucky, one either side of a single day off.......
And yes this is EASA rules in Europe.
All you Major players have this to look forward to.
WRT UK? A very big wake up call awaits you.
I did 3 weeks without a day off last September, occasional Blank days on stop overs but that was it. Not too sure on the legality of Blank days but definitely no Rostered days off in that particular period. When you do get one, yes thats right ONE, you may get a blank day before, after or if yer lucky, one either side of a single day off.......
And yes this is EASA rules in Europe.
All you Major players have this to look forward to.
WRT UK? A very big wake up call awaits you.
Blimey which sketch are we heading for? "What's the worse job you ever had" or " eh, you were lucky, in my day"...
Even at this "Major player" the answer to the OP's question will continue to be valid, even under EASA...and yes our Short Haul colleagues are already well aware of the joys of EASA.
Even at this "Major player" the answer to the OP's question will continue to be valid, even under EASA...and yes our Short Haul colleagues are already well aware of the joys of EASA.
Last edited by wiggy; 26th Nov 2014 at 07:26.
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Whilst I'm somewhat out of touch a "day off" is defined as a period free of duty notified to the crew member in advance and from X hour the preceeding day until Y hour the day following.
I worked with one particular set of FTL's where it was an average of 2 days off per week but every so many days one needed a 36 hour or 48 hour break, there was nothing in the FTL's to suggest that those breaks, indeed days off, needed to be at home base although in the spirit of things we did repatriate crew members with their days off at base sooner or later.
I worked with one particular set of FTL's where it was an average of 2 days off per week but every so many days one needed a 36 hour or 48 hour break, there was nothing in the FTL's to suggest that those breaks, indeed days off, needed to be at home base although in the spirit of things we did repatriate crew members with their days off at base sooner or later.
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It won't be long before the circle comes around again. In days past, in a charter EU airline before JAR, we had some long-haul destinations with only 1 or 2 flights per week. Thus there was often a 3,4, or 6 day stop over. Often, due to crew shortage (wonder why, but I'm not going into the whole T's & C's issue) you had 1 day back at base to do your washing and iron your uniform ready for a return on same sort of rotation. When questioned about time off the answer was you'd had 12hours off on day one of return, a whole day on day two and 12 hours before report on day 3 = 48hours off duty. PLUS you had 3 days off duty on the beach and were about to do another such stint.
In those local FTL's there was nothing about acclimatising to local time. Your gut was knotted and so was your bowel, constantly. To the management they'd paid for 6 days on the beach in a 10 day cycle. Time at home was a random thing and not a right.
If the present EASA rules have been written under pressure from the financial forces at play then they will only get worse due to greed and lack of real oversight and respect of human behaviour, even in the light of scientific evidence. Go back to the middle ages and check out you friends from Tollpuddle. Did their grievances have some similarities? Like I said the circle will come around again, but very slowly. Perhaps the glamour times after the formation of the 1st airlines were too luxurious, cosy and unrealistic for todays modern times, but the pendulum is in great danger of swinging way too far the other way: perhaps it already has. It's momentum needs to be arrested and reversed, slightly, but with care and due consideration into a balanced position. It will never return to the good old glory days, but share holder power (since all the old nationals were privatised) will be a formidable opponent and will need some strong persuading. Education of the pax will be a start. The brute force of strikes will not achieve the desired longterm effect. It will take astute concentrated thought & action to redirect the trend in a positive win win way for all parties.
In those local FTL's there was nothing about acclimatising to local time. Your gut was knotted and so was your bowel, constantly. To the management they'd paid for 6 days on the beach in a 10 day cycle. Time at home was a random thing and not a right.
If the present EASA rules have been written under pressure from the financial forces at play then they will only get worse due to greed and lack of real oversight and respect of human behaviour, even in the light of scientific evidence. Go back to the middle ages and check out you friends from Tollpuddle. Did their grievances have some similarities? Like I said the circle will come around again, but very slowly. Perhaps the glamour times after the formation of the 1st airlines were too luxurious, cosy and unrealistic for todays modern times, but the pendulum is in great danger of swinging way too far the other way: perhaps it already has. It's momentum needs to be arrested and reversed, slightly, but with care and due consideration into a balanced position. It will never return to the good old glory days, but share holder power (since all the old nationals were privatised) will be a formidable opponent and will need some strong persuading. Education of the pax will be a start. The brute force of strikes will not achieve the desired longterm effect. It will take astute concentrated thought & action to redirect the trend in a positive win win way for all parties.
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And yes this is EASA rules in Europe.
All you Major players have this to look forward to.
WRT UK? A very big wake up call awaits you.
All you Major players have this to look forward to.
WRT UK? A very big wake up call awaits you.
What a load of old bollix. Ever heard of the working time directive?
If it's that great why have no UK airlines transitioned?
When is the first UK going to transition?
When do you think the vast majority of UK Airlines are going to transition?
What are "major" UK airlines doing ref EASA FTL?
What are the "major" airlines doing with their Unions?
The fact is the airline most at a disadvantage of EASA FTL maybe a big carrier whose crews merrily swap duties so they can get a nice run of days off, possibly at the expense of FRM best practice.....
RAT - EASA FTL is much much better for acclimatisation as they have listened to the scientists
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In this small country in the middle of europe there is a requirement to plan 96 days minimum a year as fixed off days that have to be planned in advance and cannot be changed after that. In advance means at least 14 days prior. This actually is a result of another EU law, the working time directive.
That said, EASA FTL, as bad as it is, is actually in many parts an improvement over EU OPS. It is a lot worse than CAP 371, but for the rest of europe it is not that bad a development. There is still a lot of rather bad wording in that text which leaves quite some room for interpretation and the whole FRMS mess can go horribly wrong, especially as a FRMS on paper might be enough to use those wider set of limits.
And as for the OP, days off abroad are not only a longhaul thing, it is often used on shorthaul operations if switching from very late to very early duties. We had a lot of those duties in the last few years. Fly three or five sectors, end up around midnight abroad, preferably somewhere nice (most of us quite like stockholm or copenhagen, oslo isn't really nice as we stay right at the airport in the middle of nowhere, tel aviv is great [if hamas isn't firing rockets that is] as is milano). The next day is free of flight duty, but not an off day, although it could be part of a 36 hour rest time but usually isn't even that. And on the third day there usually is a report time somewhere between 2:00 to 4:30 in the morning to fly between three and five sectors back or to another destination.
That said, EASA FTL, as bad as it is, is actually in many parts an improvement over EU OPS. It is a lot worse than CAP 371, but for the rest of europe it is not that bad a development. There is still a lot of rather bad wording in that text which leaves quite some room for interpretation and the whole FRMS mess can go horribly wrong, especially as a FRMS on paper might be enough to use those wider set of limits.
And as for the OP, days off abroad are not only a longhaul thing, it is often used on shorthaul operations if switching from very late to very early duties. We had a lot of those duties in the last few years. Fly three or five sectors, end up around midnight abroad, preferably somewhere nice (most of us quite like stockholm or copenhagen, oslo isn't really nice as we stay right at the airport in the middle of nowhere, tel aviv is great [if hamas isn't firing rockets that is] as is milano). The next day is free of flight duty, but not an off day, although it could be part of a 36 hour rest time but usually isn't even that. And on the third day there usually is a report time somewhere between 2:00 to 4:30 in the morning to fly between three and five sectors back or to another destination.
Denti I think I know the country you may be thinking of. The bit about days off being known 14 days in advance intrigues me. I have heard rumours of companies where the roster is only issued a week before the month end. It is perfectly possible to get an off day on day one of the new roster. If the rules mean that the roster must in effect be issued 14 days in advance that would be great news. But I am sceptical that this is anything other than a company agreement. I would be delighted if I am wrong.
