Originally Posted by
MajorLemond
So back on Topic, what kind of trips could a new hire expect on the 787, assuming a Perth Base? I'm guessing a lot of LHR returns etc? Would this be one of the longer trips Qf do?
I was an F/O in the PER base until a couple of months ago. I did PER-LHR-PER and the domestic leg of QF9 (PER-MEL-PER) pretty much exclusively. Yes, it’s the longest but certainly the most interesting flying we do. Tired of London, tired of life. Flying over some of the more interesting places in the Middle East with political squabbles, high terrain with its associated depressurisation escape procedures all make this far more interesting than droning over the Pacific. If you could tolerate living in Perth it’s the spot to be. The possibility exists that a lot more flying may happen from Perth to Paris and Berlin. Indeed, if Perth airport weren’t such naval gazing wankers it would be happening already. If they ever get Perth airport to see sense then this will happen, I have no doubt about that.
We may even go back to some of the places we couldn’t make a profit on before with the 747 which look a lot better with 787 economics such as Rome and Athens.
For me, I live in Sydney, and the commuting 5 hours to work was taking its toll so I’m now in the MEL base waiting for SYD to open later this year. Most of my flying now is USA, Mainly SFO which is also a great city. I have been flying with some Perth based S/Os that have had patterns built out of PER so I think the company are starting to mix up the flying a bit. You’d probably see a US pattern in each roster if that’s what you bid for. Otherwise it would primarily be Europe. The last trip I did was MEL-SFO-MEL and changed one of the two S/Os in SFO. The new S/O was a lovely lady I had flown with from the PER base a few times to LHR. Her pattern was pax PER-SYD, operate SYD-SFO-MEL, pax MEL-PER. with 24 hour slips in SYD and MEL with 48 hours in SFO.
So, after that long winded post, you would do mainly Europe, with some US mixed in for variety.