PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Qantas: how long as second officer ?
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Old 10th Jun 2008, 11:01
  #9 (permalink)  
Keg

Nunc est bibendum
 
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 5,583
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What is nice is that the choice is yours; and that ain't all bad.
Amen brother!

I got a PM from a youngling in the last couple of days that asked if I was troubled by the fact that I've only been with one airline for all of my career- it was a concern to him if he did the cadetship. My (summarised) response was this:

Actually, the opportunities at QF are such that if you get bored then you've probably only got yourself to blame.

Consider my career. I was a S/O for just on two years before F/O training. That was a great time of learning for me as I flogged to Europe and back gaining experience in airline ops. As a junior F/O (2-3 years) I was almost purely domestic getting lots of sectors. As a more senior F/O (3- 6 years) I got to fly around SE Asia all the time gaining a different level of experience and getting time off in Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, etc. At the 6-8 year mark as an F/O on the 767 I could then write my own roster pretty much and did a bit of everything whilst also getting some good times with the family.

After that I went to the 744 as a F/O for two years. Once again I was flying back and forward to Europe. Re-routing over Afghanisatan, sick passengers with resultant decisions to make and crew/medical personnel to consult, etc, etc.

Now I'm in the middle of command training and it'll be back to domestic ops and start the process all over again.

The choices about the type of flying that you do in QF are probably far more open than you may get in any other airline.
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