Given the number of tales of single crewing(and experiencing same), I asked West Yorks/NPAS two questions under the FOI:
1) On a Base by Base basis, on how many occasions, during the period 1 Apr 13 to 31 Mar 14, were NPAS helicopters crewed by only a Pilot and one TFO, due to a second TFO being unavailable?
2) On a Base by Base basis, on how many occasions during the same period was a Base aircraft offline/unavailable due to a pilot being unavailable?
The word “occasions” was obviously a bit ambiguous given the different “occasions” in the results. By “occasions”, I meant shifts. And no, that is not my mistake; I was supplied with two sets of figures for Exeter.
Where Blank is recorded, this is because Bases had exceeded the 18 hours allowed for answering FOI questions.
Also, North Wales have been a bit sneaky in answering “Nil”. Their answer is technically correct, because they don’t fly with a single Observer. They cancel the shift, and from experience they have done that a lot in the past, and to quote a NW bobbie, “an awful lot lately”. So perhaps Barton are guilty of that as well.
Now, I don’t know what it was like elsewhere, but the only time in 15 years with Merseyside that I flew single crewed was when one of the bobbies looked so sweet asleep on the couch that we left him there. Mind you, we did wake him up with the skyshout outside the crewroom window when we got back!
As for lack of a pilot, if one of us went sick, given enough notice, Premiair would have a relief on the same day, or the next day at the latest, and covered many long term sickness cases. I suspect that this was the case with all Units that employed contract pilots. Obviously direct employment has it’s downside when you don’t have enough floaters.
Effective and efficient!
