how long to prepare your flight?

[dartagnan]

hi,

how long does it take to prepare a flight for an A320 pilot between each flight.

you enter in the cockpit(first flight of the day), your receive the forms, you do the weight balance, sign route form, fill the FMS, ask for a coffee, stretch your legs in the cabin and have a talk with the ladies,...etc....

3 minutes, 10 minutes???

I would like a general idea of your paperwork and what you do when waiting for pax?

[rubik101]

You won't have time for a coffee, even if you have the money to buy one, you won't have time to stretch your legs, you just did that walking the half mile from Ops, the 'ladies?' will be far to busy to talk to you or anyone else and you won't be waiting for the pax, they will come wether you are ready or not. If you need a number, how about 25 mins before etd?
Are you trying to prove a point? Do the LOCOs cut corners even here on the pre flight?
Which journal do you write for?
Happy New Year

[Piper19]

Our pilots arrive 30 minutes before pushback

[hetfield]

hi,

how long does it take to prepare a flight for an A320 pilot between each flight.

you enter in the cockpit(first flight of the day), your receive the forms, you do the weight balance, sign route form, fill the FMS, ask for a coffee, stretch your legs in the cabin and have a talk with the ladies,...etc....

3 minutes, 10 minutes???

I would like a general idea of your paperwork and what you do when waiting for pax?

Haste makes waste.

Good luck.

[expatula]

There are no fixed numbers for this as preparing an aircraft involves so many factors - such as aircraft cleaning, cabin preparation, maintenance troubleshooting (if there is any), refuelling, etc. FMGS programming would only take 2-3 minutes (esp if there are company routes already stored in the database).

If the objective of your question is actually to know how to depart on time, the keyword here is just be systematic. You can actually do everything altogether and still have time to sip coffee while pax are boarding. In a nutshell, I would say just make the most of your time. Relax, don't rush, don't argue with the engineer or dispatch on company frequency, don't make unnecessary lengthy conversations with the ground staff and save the chitchat with the ladies on cruise. If you manage to keep everything in order then you will be able to depart on time.

[dartagnan]

could you give me some example?

in commercial aviation(air charter operation), It takes 15-25 minutes to file a flight plan, take weather, fill weight and balance, and check oil of my turboprop(if you dont waste your time with the coffee,...)even when the company ask to be ready 1 hour before the flight(in case of fuel or mech problem).
as it is a daily duty, after a while, I can work very fast.
I want to know if in airline operation, there is more paperwork to do?

[Clandestino]

Actually it's less paperwork. I fly for scheduled airline and our flightplans are stored, wx brief is prepared by dispatch when we check in at ops (1 hour befor separture), 99.99% of the time W&B is done by the airport load office and oil check is performed by line maintenance. Basically, there's lot more of checking other people's paperwork than doing your own. We show up on airplane half-an-hour before departure, and if everything is running fine, the airplane is ready 10 mins later. Turnaround can be brought down to 15 mins but that requires heavy cooperation from airport services.

That's for ATR, I guess it's a bit more time on A320 if only for the sake of longer walk during walkaround. Given luck, I'll be able to give you precise answer in couple of months.

[expatula]

On the A320, 20-25 minutes will actually give you enough time to prepare the aircraft and depart on time, granting that everything is in place (i.e. no technical defects, no expected delay from ATC). Remember that as per typical airline SOPs, you don't have to do everything by yourself, and by that I mean PF and PNF task sharing (i.e. PF prepares the FMGS while PNF performs the walkaround).

It's basically the same thing for the A320 as it is for the ATR. There is not much paperwork in the cockpit because practically everything has already been sorted out the moment you check in at dispatch (WX briefing, Fuel Planning, NOTAMS, etc). In my experience, sometimes it takes even longer to get on to the aircraft than preparing the aircraft itself because of the time you spend travelling from dispatch to the terminal, going through security checks and all that.

That's why in my present outfit, flight crew report to the dispatch 1 hr before scheduled departure and cabin crew 1 hr 30 mins. We normally send the cabin crew ahead to the aircraft so that by the time we arrive there the aircraft is ready for boarding.

So that's it. Just be systematic like i said and you will save yourself a lot of unncessary worries.

Happy New Year and wishing you all an on-time departure all the time! :ok:

[expatula]

And oh by the way, the most common reason for delay is pax boarding and not the aircraft preparation itself. Sometimes the flight is all set to depart while we sit there in the cockpit waiting for some missing pax! And till then, the loadsheet will not be signed and the cabin door not closed until all the figures are sorted out for last minute changes.

Ciao!

[nugpot]

You won't have time for a coffee

I'll have to stop flying then. Coffee is a bold item at the top of my checklist. ;)

[Denti]

Theres no better way to perform the checklist item: Galley Power --- Coffee is warm :) Or tea as it may be.