Originally Posted by
737James
I have recently been a passenger on a few Thomson flights mainly due to the kids liking the Family Life and holiday village hotels.
All the crew both flightdeck and cabin crew seemed happy to work for the company and had mostly positive things to say when I chatted to them during slot delays.
I am wondering when they have the next round of recruitment whether Thomson could be an option for me to consider as already type rated 737-NG Currently based in the Midlands so easy and be happy to be based at EMA,BHX,LTN or maybe DSA
What are the shift patterns like on the 737 fleet during the summer, do you get back to back longer sector days/nights e.g PFO Sat,LCA Sun and DLM Mon.
Looks to me that most of the deep nights are mostly PMI,IBZ and BOJ flights
Do you get many down route aircraft swaps ( This may not be regular but happened in both directions on recent holiday causing us to miss slots)
The fleet seems quite modern and generally reliable which is good and do crew have good relationship with Ops and engineering ?
I am not sure if I would be interested in the Canadian contract in winter due to family is there any pressure to do so.
Back to back long sectors? Yes absolutely. But so to might you get back to back short sectors e.g UK to MAH, IBZ, PMI etc. More often it will be a mixture of short and long sectors with around 14 flying duties a month in the summer. In the winter significantly fewer.
The aircraft are excellent. While the B757s are a bit old and need a bit of tlc, they are well maintained. The B737 all fairly new and well equipped and the airline start delivery of the MAX in 2018. B787 very nice indeed - just whether you want long haul or not.
Aircraft swaps? Sometimes. Is this a big deal??
Canada is purely voluntary! It is significantly oversubscribed in FO rank and undersubscribed in Capt rank. This is no doubt due to many reasons but probably include demographics and family commitments to name just two.