Rostering
Right to start off "pattern" isn't a word I would use to describe the AL rosters.
I am yet to meet anyone who actually definitively KNOWS how our rosters are produced. There is lots of hearsay about how they are manually prepared or that they are computer produced. The fact of the matter is that we aren't getting what we asked for and in fact what is agreed with the union.
So here is my take on our rosters. Firstly we have a roster close out date by which we would have entered into Carmen (AL calls it PBS = Preferential Bidding System) our bids for the forthcoming roster period. it closes out on a Sunday night and the following Friday a roster will be released. It is available from AIMS so you can download it electronically into whatever format you like and put it onto your phone, pc etc. Once the new roster is published you will have 6 weeks of work showing which reduces down to 2 weeks before the next one is due to be out. Not great considering the winter/summer schedules are published so far in advance so AL knows which flights it will be operating many many months in advance. How much you get of your bids will depend on your seniority as the system tries to achieve a certain satisfaction ratio. I think the most senior pilots would expect something like 80% and the most junior much lower.
As I said your bids are entered by yourself into the Carmen system. You can bid for any manner of things such as times to check in by/check out/overnights/flights to specific countries/regions and individual flight numbers. You also get to bid for golden days off and request free days. Generally it is two golden days per roster period. If you don't get your golden days in the current roster then supposedly you get bumped up the list to get them next time around. We also had a request book into which we entered days off that we really really wanted off eg: birthdays etc. The company unilaterally decided to withdraw this without any agreement with the union which is another breach of our working conditions. Apparently we can now email someone and it will work the same. I fail to see how any transparency will be achieved and you will get what you ask for but there you go.
So the above is how it is meant to work. In essence a pc programme will spit out your work. It would be 5 on 2 off or any manner of combinations. The worst would be 6 on 1 off. You can do swaps if you like to try and "fix" your roster. Obviously you can't swap off training and checking duties but pretty much any regular flying can be swapped.
We overnight in ORK, SNN and LHR. If this doesn't float your boat you can generally offload them. ORK are easier to offload. LHR used to be handy enough duties although a number of the couplings changed over the summer which made them really long duty days often involving a continental flight from Dublin ending up in LHR with minimum rest. Ocasionally we might be sent over to cover for LGW or BFS although on the FO side this is rare. Captains tend to see those places more often as they don't seem to have enough LHS in those bases.
On the positive side of things our free days are our free days. Once they are published they are cast in stone and cannot be changed or taken off you. Crew control can "friday change" your forthcoming weeks roster but cannot touch any free days. There are also various rules restricting the amount of tinkering that they can do to your work based on the amount of notice you are given. Generally this is limited to 1-2 hours of what was rostered. Anything more and you start negotiating or ultimately can refuse the duty.
Finally there is a project ongoing to provide us with a fixed pattern roster. The union is leading towards a 5/3 pattern and allegedly it will be coming in for summer next year.