Low cost ops;
The routine is fairly straightforward, much as exeng said.
Get up, snatch a cup of coffee, drive to work, 4 sectors - perhaps south of the Alps each time, 25 minute turnarounds and no time to sneeze all day long. Drive home, iron shirt, grab a snack and fall into bed. Set alarm for a scant 8 hrs hence. Get up, snatch a cup...
Repeat six times, no meals possible during this time, only sandwiches and midnight snacks.
Take days "off". ie do housework, washing, ironing, domestic admin etc. Get up, snatch a....However your days "Off" will ALWAYS either start after a duty finish minutes before midnight or end with an alarm set for 0430, and occasionally both.
Get the picture?
This is all fine, BUT...
If you have a family/partner you'll be a stranger to them. You WILL either get up at 0430 or get home well after midnight. One or the other. If you are unlucky enough to work for the airlines that do nightflights you can add to the above reports at 0130, 0230, 0330 and so on, 10 - 12 hrs duries and minimum rest before the next 0130 report. How will your partner take to being woken up either at 0100 or 0430 EVERY working day?
You will have no social life whatever as you are either working or asleep when your mates are playing or you will have no idea what you're doing a more than 2-3 weeks ahead at best, and a couple of days ahead at worst due to the vagaries of roster production.
Additionally you will soon learn that you sinply cannot say, "Yes, I'll come round on Thursday cos I'm on earlies because you'll be delayed/roster changed and you'll be over the Bay of Biscay when you mates are expecting you for supper. Pretty soon they'll get the message that you're too unreliable to be worth inviting.
And thats with the better companies.
Even so, it's a pretty good job, but don't expect your employer to recognise that you are a human being with any right to a life outside work. You are a slave to the job. Period, and your slave-masters are likely to be the 20yr old job-experience children who work in ops and crewing.
It may well be the best job in the worst industry in the world.
OK, the above is perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, but believe me not by very much. It is an extremely onerous job, and the way it is conducted at present by the big N European budget airlines not one that can be physically sustained for more than a very few years before total burnout.
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 14th November 2002 at 15:41.