Originally Posted by
Ethics Gradient
As this seems the most active Flybe topic around, anyone want to comment on the prospects for a DE command on the Dash at Exeter?
9 years experience, previous Turboprop command, jet FO just now and commuting into the middle of the country so EXT would be a huge reduction in driving as well as being able to do standby from home rather than a motorway services.
Am I deluding myself or would I get home most days? Or reading between the lines is it so chaotic that the roster is meaningless?
Further to the replies by AC and CM.
Probably quite good, but don't plan to spend much time there. From my "Road Trips" over the last 3 months, BHD, BHX, EDI, GCI, JSY, NWI and SOU are all favourite destinations for some or all of your 5 to 6 day block. Changes happen on a continuous basis, often at short notice, to the point you wonder what the point of producing a roster really is. You may as well be on permanent "Standby" as Flybe's policy seems to be that during that 5 or 6 day period they can do anything they like with you. The only thing you can plan on is that you can't plan anything at all!
For a while it's all rather amusing, but when you finally wake up you realize the whole thing is a shambles and the distinctly average remuneration is not worth all the hassle. Basically, they're "crisis managing" but not quite succeeding. There are too many aeroplanes, not enough pilots and if rumours of a mass exodus in the next few months are even slightly close to the truth, then how the winter schedule with lots of new routes is going to be achievable, God only knows.
Roster stability could go a long way to fixing my particular grip, but then it's been tried before and if you can roster people up to the maximum, on a regular basis then who's going to back off a bit to give a bunch of "over paid" pilots a better life style?
Cynical? Me? Not a bit of it.