Sadly people who report voluntarily 15 mins early are only making a rod for their own, and their colleagues' backs. It is a silly and short-sighted habit, and should be made to stop.
They do it from keenness and enthusiasm, of course, and I don't blame them for that - we were all keen enthusiastic FOs once, BUT...
If the brief is extended by complex weather, ATC, operational difficulties or inop computers then turning up early merely hides the problems from official view, and although it helps the Holy Grail of schedules, allows the company to get away with shoddy support (eg IT) and ignoring the fact that briefings often take longer than the short time allocated, ie an unrealistic allocation of duty time pre-flight, which is just dishonest.
The only way companies can be made to understand that a CAVOK, nil notam, nil malfunction, nil operational problem day is NOT the norm is by late departures (where they so occur) annotated as "Insufficient time for pre-flight briefing* on report forms. I bet this never, ever happens.
An excess of zeal to "help" the company is not a commendable or Professional attitude, and here it voluntarily perpetuates an inadequate and manipulative system.
The CAA have a responsibility too, and with computerised crew check-in systems should be looking hard at how the company clearly put de-facto pressure on pilots to turn up early "in order to get the job done". The frequency of early reports should be carefully analysed, and appropriate action taken. If this were done properly I suspect the implications would be large, far reaching and serious. Which is why I don't think it is likely to actually happen.
Reporting early may well be a violation of duty hours. It should therefore NEVER happen in a Professional environment, unless it is honestly accounted for with respect to actual, as opposed to notional report times. If the actual report time is not recorded (why is it not mandatory for the computer recorded report time to be the actual time of start of FDP? CAA, you are shirking your responsibility here...) then this is a deliberate falsification of flight documentation, isn't it?
The commonly held view that early reports are required to secure positive "attitude" scores for promotion is utterly shameful, and the mere existence of such a view is a sad indictment on a promotion system that thus appears punitive, oppressive and manipulative.
You ain't paid to be there out of hours. Just don't do it. Late schedules due to insufficient briefing time are their problem, not yours!
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 18th Feb 2008 at 19:12.