Typical Trips for a BA A320 FO

[Staple]

Could anyone in the know give me an idea of the typical sort of duty you do? Are they generally 4 or 3 sector days, tours or mainly day trips? I start in a few months, also as asked on another thread, do they supply accommodation during the training phase?

Thanks in anticipation...

[Human Factor]

As you will be LHR based, accommodation won't be supplied. As far as trips go, expect to work mainly weekends with a mix of tours and day trips. Mainly earlies.

[Tea White None]

What is the crewing levels like on the bus at the mo?

Are new joiners gonna have the chance to get on the bus at LHR or will they be farmed out to the 73?

[Preppy]

Crewing levels on the bus are very tight. At the moment there are approx 275 F/Os and about 65 a/c; a bit over 4 crews per a/c! :D

[Riker]

Are the trips throughout the continent or do they tend to follow certain patterns (i.e., intra-UK or LHR-AMS-LHR-CDG-LHR, etc.)? As a new A320 FO, can you still fly some pretty interesting trips and have some nice layovers (e.g., Istanbul, Athens, Rome, etc.)?

[Hand Solo]

The Airbus doesn't nightstop in ATH and as it's a high credit day trip it'll probably be snapped up by the senior guys at stage 1 and won't fall through to your roster. IST might well crop up from time to time as well the occasional FCO (I'm sure you know thats Rome!) though they are most likely to be earlies. That said I always found earlies to be far better for sightseeing and touristy things anyway! I would predict in your first year you'll probably see all the nightstop destinations, albeit on earlies at the weekend, but you'll probably spend a bit more time in Germany and Scandinavia than you will Spain and Italy. Except Milan, you're welcome to that.

In terms of trip patterns, they're either very short min credit there and backs, long high credit day trips or 2,3 or 4 day trips which are generally 3 sectors on the first and last days and 2 or 4 sectors on the middle days. Single sector days are rostering freaks so are extremely rare. Early tours are very tiring as a long run of 0430-0500 pick ups drain you. Many nighstops are now almost down to minimum rest (Milan again!), but not all. Pretty much any destination can appear in a long tour, with the caveat that they are trying to construct fixed-link tours for the flights that operate out of terminal four (VIE,CDG,AMS,BRH,GVA,LYS) to save some of the vast amount of time we waste going between aircraft. T4 is an utter ball ache and you will not be on time at any point in your tour due to constantly having to wait to cross 27R. Apart from that its fine.

[Riker]

Hand Solo,

Good post. I am sure you are looking forward to getting off the Bus and getting on the 777 or 744 to avoid so many ups and downs in a day...

[Hand Solo]

You bet! You are very welcome to my place on the bus, it's a joy to fly!

[Staple]

Thanks for the info, how many days do you tend to work between days off and is it normally 2 consecutive days of at a time?

[Hand Solo]

You can work up to 7 days should the company choose you to but its unusual. I've often worked 6 days in a row then had a few days off, but it could be 2,3,4 or 5. There isn't really a set pattern. It is quite possible to be rostered a single day off in the middle of blocks of work but that can't do it to you all month so you will get a run of a few days off somewhere. Can't really be anymore specific than that, you'll have to ask someone who's around the bottom of the seniority list what they are gettnig.

[AIRWAY]

Night Stops, a friend of mine ( from BA ) once had a night stop at LIS, is that common? I should have asked him at the time, but after reading this thread the subject poped over.

Interesting posts Hand Solo.

Regards

[Hand Solo]

Yes, two crews per night in LIS but I think its on the 757/767 at the moment so no nightstops there for the bus crews.

[AIRWAY]

Wow, that was quick :ok:

Thank you HS

[spoilers yellow]

The 75/76 is nightstopping LIS at the moment, but we also have standover days down there so not sure if the bus isn't down there at some point.
Alot of the european nightstops frequently swop from month to month between fleets, however during the summer months it certainly seems that the larger capacity of the 76 sees us picking up most of the FCO, MAD,IST,NCE etc
but agree with Hand solo, youre welcome to Milan!