Air Southwest

[Blueskyrich]

Afternoon everyone,

I'm hoping that some wise soul (or if not wise, just in the know!) can enlighten me with regards to a few nuggets of information about Air Southwest?

Firstly, I'm interested to know details of 'typical' working patterns and schedules. What sort of system does the company work to?

Also, what are the requirements in terms of distance or time, within which you must be resident to your designated base?

I have details of salary, benefits etc. from other usual sources - if anyone could help with the above or pass on any other information they may feel of interest, I would be most grateful.

Many thanks,
Bluesky

[Joffyh]

I'll try my best, although I don't work for them my best mate is an F/O, I'll let him know about your question and get some answers if you need them. For now though...

At the moment they operate two shifts a day, early and late. At Plymouth, early shifts have a report time of around 06:00 depending on your flight and you generally finish around 13:00. Late shifts have a report time of 12:00ish and finish about 21:30. There's no uniform pattern to the rosta e.g. no "5 on 4 off", generally out of 5 days a week you get 3 flying and 2 home standby, there is no airport standby. With the introduction of new routes at the end of April there are going to be changes in the number of shifts a day. The rosta generally seems fairly flexible, with you being able to request a maximum of 4 specific days off a month, you're also allowed to do mutual swaps.

You need to be within 60 minutes of your designated base.

Hope that helps :ok:

[Blueskyrich]

Hi Joffy,

That's exactly the type of thing I was after - thanks very much! :ok:

Any other information about conditions, holidays, chance of progression would be gratefully received!

Many thanks,

Bluesky

[tunawholesalers]

FO pay is - 18k + £5 a day for food allowance. Rises rapidly over the first year to approx 24k.Pay rises are basewd on time served or total logbook hours. Two years will see you earning 29k+ of you work hard.

Progression will be extremely slow. Very few captains move on as its a retirement airline for the old BA boys. The reverse of that is flying with these people gives you great experience and great people to learn from. The company is owned by sutton Harbour who seem to dampen the thought of new A/C which again hinders your progress.Time to command I would guess is soewhere in the region of 3-5 years. They once employed direct entry captains but those days are long gone now.

30 holidays a year i think. Very flexible but to be taken in two chunks. Winter leave and summer leave.

Rostering is great. Home every night and easy to swap duties and get days off when you want them at very short notice. Mutual swaps are not a problem.

Plymouth is a tough airport to fly into as a pilot. Its not everyones cup of tea but it certainly seperates the men from the boys! Some say its almost impossible but these people are the sons of dogs and may the donkeys of death sh*t on their souls!;)

In general i would sum ASW as follows - Great people,great place to learn,good rosters,limited but good routes,good load factors, crap planes, crap pay, nice part of the UK to live, crap benefits.

Ive moved on but dont regret my time there one bit!!!! Infact i still miss it!:{

[adverse-bump]

some of these facts are wrong.

ASW do not limit you to the number of days of you can request.

and the starting pay isnt 18k. I think its 19k, but goes up quite alot after 6 months.

Generally a great place to work, very friendly, and the dash is great to fly.

[tunawholesalers]

you can request 30 days a month but will most likely only get 4 of those requests!:E

[adverse-bump]

haha! very true!

it is only a request! I might try that though!

[Blueskyrich]

Being the nosey bugger that I am, did anyone here attend the recent interviews in Plymouth at the beginning of the month, and if so, how did you fare?

Thanks,
Bluesky

[Cavallier]

Just curious to understand why you reckon Plymouth is a hard or complex airport to fly into???????

The Cav:cool:

[silverknapper]

Your tone sounds sarcastic there Cav, so I'm guessing you are familiar with PLH?

[Flying Farmer]

Ok I will bite, it's procedural only, so none of the safeguards of CAS.

Its short, at around (don't quote me!) 1200 Mts, so we are often WT limited for both take off and landing, all good fun in a 20 Tonne aircraft. Given icing conditions or a wet runway we can be severely restricted on wt ie: chuck off passengers or fuel!

Only one ILS to 31, the other end (13) is an NDB approach on to a downhill runway. The weather at Plymouth when its bad is nasty, with a northerly coming over Dartmoor the approach to 31 can be very turbulent.

In comparison Bristol is easy, other major airports a doddle :ok:

[adverse-bump]

plh is 1161m!!!

and only 30m wide (very narrow compared to bristol which is 50 m wide!)

[Blueskyrich]

Just bumping this one back up to the top - any information on the company, particular the last lot of recruiting, would be gratefully received!