Taking each in turn:
1. Have many Astraeus pilots left for Easyjet or Ryanair - what about the trainees?
A). Whilst we have had people who’ve left EasyJet to join us, to my knowledge no full-time pilots have left to go the other way. That said, we do employ some contract pilots ( to smooth the peaks & troughs of seasonal demand ) and these people might well indeed flit between airlines.
W.r.t the trainees, I assume you mean the people who have self-funded a B737 type-rating ? If so, I do know that some have gone to Easyjet, some to other airlines, and a few have since been offered employment with Astraeus.
2. How would you describe the "feeling" among Astraeus pilots now that the airline is established and set to expand? Pretty optimistic and happy?
A). The company recently conducted a staff attitude survey and ( albeit with a token number of dissenters and neigh sayers – which you’ll always get in any business ) I think it's true to say that the pilots came out as the happiest and most upbeat of the whole work force – and that the majority of the workforce were also happy and upbeat too.
3. How many hours can a new FO expect per month ?
A). Albeit not quite what you’ve asked for, i.e ‘by month’ - but you can go do the math, wherein I’d say that in general we’re twice as busy in the summer as in the winter - I've just queried our Operations system for a cross section of our pilots and it shows that, during the last twelve months, our full-time FO's on average achieved approximately 600 flight hours ( with the maximum figure that I’ve seen being 723 hours ), however the captains work slightly more hours than this, e.g. their average was 710 and the highest was 842.
4. Are there any nightstops (any examples) or are most of the flights out and back? How many sectors per day on average?
A). Yes there are occasional night ( and day ) stops, which might include anywhere from Aberdeen / Cambridge / Innsbruck / Keflavik / Leeds / Malabo / Malaga / Rome / St. Petersburg / Tel Aviv / Uralsk..... etc., where some of the stops can be anything from minimum rest through to several days.
That said, the majority of flights are indeed out and back in the same day ( or night ) and are typically two sectors, although we do partake in various 3 and four sector days, e.g. in our work for Iceland Express, as well as various double-drops around the Greek Islands, and / or for refuelling.
Aside - Some of these ‘outs & backs’ can be very long days indeed – e.g. the sector from Gatwick to Aswan typically takes about five and half hours. Once in Aswan you do a rapido turnaround ( in under one hour, hopefully ), which is then followed by the return trip back to Gatwick, usually slogging into headwinds, which typically takes another six hours – now just where’d I put my Chalfonts cream ?!
5. As far as variety of flying, what is the furthest afield you have flown - any specific exotic locations you like? What is the best and worst route experienced in your opinion?
A). Astraeus currently operate the worlds longest
non-stop B737 scheduled service – on behalf of
JetAir - from Gatwick to Malabo ( Equatorial Guinea ).
Each sector typically takes just over 7 hours ( and at its longest it’s taken over 8 hours ) to cover a sector distance of 3313 miles ( 2878 Nm ) ; It’s got very long legs has a B737-700.
W.r.t. is it exotic ? Well, any trip to Africa is always ‘interesting’, as indeed can be any of our destinations.
Along with this we also, twice a week, fly to the rather exotic Uralsk ( in Kazakhstan ), as well as some quite interesting places in North Africa ( e.g. in Egypt we operate in to Taba, Hurgharda, Aswan, Sharm El Sheik – and in Algeria we’re in and out of Hassi Massaoud ) …. wherein the views of the Sahara are just awesome !
Needless to say we fly to all points in between, as well as up into the Artic Circle, and when I last checked the number of different airports we’ve operated to totalled 137 – which is non to shabby considering that’s only just over eighteen months since the very first Astraeus flight took place.
W.r.t. best and worst ? The simple answer is, all of them and none of them respectively, as each is different and has it’s own challenges and appeals.
6. Lastly - what about hiring projections? I know about the self-sponsorship type program (I have seen the ads). How many will likely be added in the next year or so?
A). I believe we might be getting more aircraft, e.g. maybe just one, or perhaps two, for next summer - it very much depends on market demand - there's a lot of variables involved.
As you might have read in the trade press, there is indeed a potential aircraft fleet change looming, probably a couple of years hence, e.g. maybe switching to Airbus ( but it’s a big ‘maybe’ ).
Of course the figure you really want to know is the crew to aircraft ratio – wherein ours must be about 6 ( uhm, or is it 7 ? ) crews to every aircraft– and so each additional aircraft hull would require us to find 6 captains, 6 FO’s, 6 senior cabin crew, and 18 main cabin crew - so not a particularly vast expansion in recruitment when viewed with the number of people looking for their first jet job.
That said, please remember that the present preference is for B737 Type Rated pilots, albeit that, sometime in the future, I believe our Operations Director ( John Mahon, aka on pprune as 'hamrah' ) is
considering offering another PPRuNe cadet scheme – but quite when this
might come to fruition is yet to be determined – so keep on monitoring PPRuNe.
Robert Vesco – I’ll admit that the recruitment web page does indeed look very similar to the eJ one, just indeed as the FlyJet equivalent look uncannily similar to ours ( even down to the naming of the fields behind the form – a truly remarkable coincidence no doubt
)…. but perhaps it’s more a case that, as is oft’ said, ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’.
kuwaitlocal - err, what point are you trying to make ?
