What is it like to work for FlyBe?
Well FlyBe rostering is truly in the dark ages;
6 or 5 on, then 2 (mainly) or 3 (occasionally) off. Policy is to minimize days off even if this means a good number of days are only two sectors.
You will start your days off from a late and the first duty back will be an early - which on a two off means you only get one evening effectively free, and when coupled with 6 on is, from the rest/recovery point of view, bordering on the dangerous.
You will not get many of your request days off granted - Manchester pilots were told that you get a request day if it fits with the roster pattern - in other words you get a request day granted if you were going to get a day off then anyway.
Unless you are very senior you wont get much if any of the holiday you bid for.
The weakness of the scheduling agreement means the company has wide latitude to arbitrarily extend/alter duty days and convert early standbys into late duties.
On the plus side there’s a great bunch of people to work with, and that includes the crews and the front-line crewing officers and rosterers down in EXT who seem decent enough when you talk to them (which makes it difficult to understand why the rostering’s so cr@p - I think it has to do with policy and company structure - which is apparently unusual in that the rosterers and crewers aren’t under the same direct management chain as the flight crews). Also there doesn’t seem to be a blame culture if you’re honest, and captains are allowed to get on with being captains without being micro-managed.
In summary: If you’re a newbie looking for experience, or experienced and in the happy position to be able to work a part time contract, FlyBe is for you. On the other hand if you have the experience to be able to choose, and you aspire to some sort of reasonable family/home/social work life balance, then look elsewhere. Pity really; FlyBe could be O.K. if it got the rostering right, but as ezydriver says "pilots value lifestyle" and unfortunately as long as its current rostering practices continue it will remain a high crew turnover training airline.