I hope this doesn't seem too ignorant but I'm not in the airline business. What do operations types do ?? I am an aerospace engineer with 4 years flight test experience and I'd like to break into the airline world. Is operations some thing I should consider ?? Do airlines hire engineers in their operations departments ? What would my chances be and what kind of work would I do ?
Thanks for any info.
SETS.
quarterback
4th Sep 1999, 07:11
Sets.......
What can I say......
Opsness is next to Godliness!!!!!
Seriously, though..
The Ops role varies from airline to airline,
depending on what field of flying you are involved in..Mainly, it consists of flight planning (i.e. Computer flight plans compilation), liaison with caterers, ground handlers, air traffic bods, etc to allow your birds to fly when they should...
(Lots of hair tearing out when it comes to the ATC side of things!!!!!!!!)
You are generally held responsible for anything that happens to your aircraft,
whether directly appertaining to your own job, or not..
You could also be required to obtain overflight clearances for certain flights,
and arrange ground handling in some out of the way airport, at some very ungodly hour of the day/night.
Most airlines insist that their Ops guys are
well on the way to being junior weather forecasters, and pseudo-pilots, with a fair knowledge of met and a/c systems being very handy if you want to progress to any great heights.
As far as the engineering side goes, most of the large airlines are getting into the style of having their own in-house liaison
between airline and engineering contractors
(unless they are big enough to have their own in-house engineers)..These are called
Maintenance Operational Control posts
(or something similar), and act as a very important link between the line engineers and the Ops dept.
With your background as stated, it might be worth you looking in this direction..
Hope this is okay to get u started..If there's any more required, post a yell, and I'll try to answer (No doubt, you'll get numerous replies to this one anyway,and be innundated with suggestions).
ghost-rider
4th Sep 1999, 13:28
Sets,
We have an MOC here, and it works well.
On shift is the MOC controller, responsible for overall shift management of the entire engineering flightline crews, and an assistant logistics bod who conjurs up spare parts from Outer Mongolia (aka Boeing or Stansted !) whenever needed.
As stated above, with your engineering experience, it seems worth a look.
If you want any contact details at my mob, feel free to email me.