Working as a F/O at Go.
Per month, I averaged nine days worth of flying which were 'out & backs' on the same day, and 3.3 days worth which were night-stop / split-duties.
Nb. Last summer I did operate 4 night flights – 3 of these got back just after 5am and one just before 3 am – and I got paid extra for doing them.
Typically we have a pattern of five days on, and then three off – involving a mixture of earlies and lates, or with a split-duty / night-stop in the middle.
Accordingly, per month, I went to work (as an average) on just under 13 days, which involved (again, as an average) 32 sectors, 72 flight block hours, and 138 duty hours; At most, I did a maximum of four sectors in any one day.
Across the year all my days off, or leave, have been preceded by an early-finish (mid morning / early afternoon), with the first flight back after any day-off / leave as a late-start (mid-afternoon onwards).
Nb. If you should happen to finish after midnight on a day-off (even at one minute past the witching hour “... and waddya mean we’d slow down to make sure we do – as if ?!”
this results you getting the rostered day, plus an extra day, off.
I have been called out from standby just once in the whole of last year (I was also on standby on 9 other occasions but not called).
Nb. I would have been on standby for a total of 25 occasions, but I traded 16 of these for ‘Office Days’ in order to work on some computer system projects.
I have had NO roster changes at all in a whole year - i.e. every rostered duty was the one that I subsequently did. The roster is available weeks in advance of duty.
All the holiday dates I asked for were granted.
Average monthly take-home has been £2877.
Ps (hence the edit). I forgot to say that I primarily swapped those standby days (mentioned above) for office days because I was so bored at home (and everybody knows that FO's never go sick coz they want the hours towards their command !). That said, I also forgot to mention the 7 other 'office days' I spent out of the country on business related to some IT systems projects.
Personally, I'm having a ball and I'd certainly recommend Go.
However it would be very unfair, without personal knowledge of some of the other companies, to caste dispersions; all (even Go) have both good and bad points - and thus I'll have to leave it to you to figure out just what these are.
[This message has been edited by CrashDive (edited 05 January 2001).]