EK consecutive days off

[CitationTen]

Can anyone that's actually flying for EK tell me what the expected consecutive days off are? To be more specific, the least consecutive days off and most consecutive days off per month (based on your bid group?)? I'd like to get an idea of an average.

From what I've read and been told about the new roster rules, the max days off in a row seem to be 4, however, then I hear that many people are still getting 6 - 10 days off in a row. In short, I'm confused now. Can anyone shed some light? Many thanks!

[fatbus]

it has been said before , commuting from here is almost impossible if that s what you were thinking of

[kingoftheslipstream]

Citation 10

There ain't no average. Nada. Zip. Zilch. It's a whimsical situation with everybody from crew planners to senior flt ops manglement lyin'. You can score a great roster by intelligent bidding and get a "manual insertion" which screws the whole thing. (Lovely term that...) Some months all ya git is 2 in a row off and some months ya can score 10. It's mandated no more than 14... but it's as rare as ... rocking horse droppings.

Folks like yourself on the outside lookin' in just can't fathom that this isn't Kansas anymore Toto... nothin' here works like it does wherever it is ya come frum.

I know this answer must be frustratin' as hell; I don't mean it ta be. This is the way it is here.

[Plank Cap]

Top bid month now and 14 days off, of which 7 consecutive. And this is based on a bid to maximise consecutive days off. All I can tell you is that since the introduction of the capping to 14 off days target, my total AND consecutive days off have reduced notably. Not to mention my quality of life. Keep recovering..............

[330 Man]

I am in my middle bid month and have 8 days off in a row followed by a rest day. A friend of mine is in his 2nd from top bid month and he has 9 off followed by a rest day. It depends on what you bid, what month you are in and how the "manual insertion" office treats you. Regardless of what you get, it will never total more than 14 off days in a month.

Fatbus is spot on, commuting here will lead to early death. It is not easy to do, very few attempt it, and those that do hate it. It is nearly implssible to do, so I would not consider it.

330 man

[CitationTen]

What about your 42 days annual vacation. Theoretically, if you get 4 days off consecutively in a month, couldn't you add another 4 (for example) days (vacation) to get a total of 8 days off in a row?

Some months you perhaps wouldn't even need to use the vacation leave, in order to "save" up more for days for when you need it (in regards to the bid group).

Wouldn't this work? Just a thought.

[CitationTen]

What about your 42 days annual vacation. Theoretically, if you get 4 days off consecutively in a month, couldn't you add another 4 (for example) days (vacation) to get a total of 8 days off in a row?

Some months you perhaps wouldn't even need to use the vacation leave, in order to "save" up more for days for when you need it (in regards to the bid group).

Wouldn't this work?

What about manual insertions? How often do they happen? As in, once a month, once a year? I'd like to get an idea.

Thanks!

[Wizofoz]

No, it wouldn't work.

Vacation is awarded by a bid system in blocks of between one and three weeks, months in advance. You are not guarenteed to get what you bid for. You ARE guarenteed to only get one block of leave during "Peak" periods.

Citation, you are being given wise advice here. I am personally happy at EK, but only because I brought my family here.

It IS NOT a commuting position. I kopw commuting is a way of life in the US, but it isn't here.

By all means come, but don't expect to work here and live somewhere else (and lets not even start on the problems of getting flights home!!)

[White Knight]

Wiz - you are NOT gauranteed (how do you spell this word??????) ANY block of leave.... If that was the case then why've I got eff all peak leave this leave year????????????

[watertheflowers]

But as White Knight says it isn't.

Seems that fresh DECs such as Wizofoz are getting peak leave, whilst those with a bit more time at EK such as WK and myself are not.

Go figure.

[Orangewing]

Guaranteed. :rolleyes:

[Wizofoz]

What I meant was you are GUARANTEED to have a MAXIMUM of one block of peak leave.

Point being, and I'm sure even WTF will agree with me (not possible, surley!!) that good or bad, EK is NOT a viable commuting option, and to be fair isn't sold as such.

OH, WTF, that klaxon horn that goes off on your computer every time I post, can I buy that at Plug-ins?:rolleyes:

[Wiley]

The only problem with the "tack 4 days off to 4 days leave" plan every month is getting the 4 days leave.

In EK, leave these days is usually applied for through the company website which shows a calendar displaying the days when leave is available to be bid for. If no leave is available on a particular day, that day appears with a solid red background. All too often, four or more months, particularly during the summer or the Christmas periods, will appear as a solid red block.

I know of one captain who first resigned as a Training Captain because after much negotiation, the training department would not allow him to take his leave in four day blocks each month. (Training captains work to a different leave schedule to line captains and FOs.) So he resigned his training captain position hoping he'd have better luck doing the same thing as a line captain. (This, when the company was/is in what can only be described as a crisis in its shortage of training captains.) With many years of seniority, he was still unable to make it work, despite many creative attempts at trip swapping every month with other line captains.

So he resigned from the company and is currently seeing out the last few weeks of his notice period.

There are unofficial trip swap sites for each aircraft type for captains and FOs in EK. (Thank you, Anders, for a great service.) When monthly rosters first appear, everyone in these swap groups are bombarded by sometimes fanciful trip swap requests: "Chennai night return (a real horror)/Lagos trip/9 day Auckland, will swap for days off". Lately, a truly disturbing trend has appeared: people offering to pay others to do their flying for them.

For reasons that may have as much to do with ego and loss of face as with good business sense, the people in top management levels within the company continue to refuse to entertain any suggestion of remote basing, even of allowing one off deals where two pilots could share a line that allowed one to break a pattern at an out port to take his days off and another, coming off his days off, to take the pattern over.

Would any such system involve more work for the schedule/roster builders? Certainly. Would it save the company millions in improved retention of senior pilots (and lately, quite junior pilots as well)? Without a shadow of a doubt.

In the very near future, you’ll all be spared the ramblings of Wiley, at least on subjects pertaining to EK, because Wiley is soon to join the ranks of those leaving. I know basing is too big an ask for EK to grasp in one step. However, if they’d come up with a roster system that allowed me to take some of my days off in a remote EK port, where I could operate a service in, hand over to one of the many other pilots who’d like to do the same thing, and then operate out at the end of my days off, they could probably keep my services for a few more years. I KNOW I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

[Scooter Rassmussin]

A friend who resigned recently because of no longer being able to commute asked for help with rostering or some sort of special treatment but was told this does not happen and from high level in Emirates management commuting is to be stopped . He was told nobody has special deals although there seems to be the same guys going to Perth all the time and yet their seniors cant get a trip there.
So if you think you can commute lookout................:rolleyes:

[Bring Back The Biff]

"Lately, a truly disturbing trend has appeared: people offering to pay others to do their flying for them."

Wiley, please enlighten me as to why this is "truly disturbing" exactly?

Some airlines have company mandated portal based systems for exactly this and it works pretty well.

IMHO, it is an entirely useful - and appropriate idea...

[menard]

Ok Biff,

I offer you 10dhs for my Hyderabad tonight....

[Bring Back The Biff]

Ah yes, I see... you are disturbed!

[7x7]

Some airlines have company mandated portal based systems for exactly thisBiff... would the "some airline(s)" you refer to be that cutting edge of modern Aviation, Virgin Blue?

[GoForIt]

This is the first I've heard of EK capping days off at 14. I knew guys over there who were often getting 17 days off. So my question is, where are the other three days going? Are you flying more hours or getting longer layovers?

GoForIt

[fatbus]

14 max is now the rule and if you do ULR's the rest is filled in with night turns.No way really of avoiding that because it gets to restrictive. They (ED) claim the 14 day thing spreads the flying out and saved alot of crew.

[theidler]

Emirates has a number of short night turnaround flights, 40-50 minute sectors to Muscat, Doha, Bahrain and the like. Anyway, the way the computerised bidding system used to work there weren't enough crews to cover these flights.

So, the solution, limit the days off in the computer bidding system to 14 per month, et voila, enough crews to cover the night turnarounds.

Sorted!


And as fatbus says, then pretend that the reason for the cap (in print from management) is because of a disparity in work between the top and bottom bid groups, the premise being that the low bid groups are working too hard (I think the word fatigue was mentioned) while the high bid groups are not working hard enough. Although the real consequence of the cap is more work in the top bid groups and no change to the workload in the low bid groups.

ps forgot to say that the cap doesn't affect me at all because I can't recall ever getting more than 11 days off in a month, and it's usually 9 or 10 days off, with most months including ULH flights to Oz and/or the US.

[Bring Back The Biff]

7x7 - no, CX.

Have a system called 'proffering' -where if you don't want to do a flight, you can advertise on the 'proffer board' within the portal.

If someone wants the flight, they get paid the company advised rate dependent on rank - per hour, for the block time...

[JuniorMan]

How many of these short night sectors so you do a night. Just a turn or more? What time do they depart? Is it possible to bid to avoid "red-eyes" at EK?

[GMDS]

Is it possible to bid to avoid "red-eyes" at EK?

This must be the funniest one-liner i have read this year!!

[CAYNINE]

Junior,

There are short medium and bloody rediculous turn arounds everynight, the 330 cops a lot of them but increasingly the 777.

Go to www.emirates.com and see the network, that way you will realise that there is no way that we can give you that answer you seek.

[7x7]

So Biff, when you accept a proffered flight in CX, who pays you the agreed upon rate for doing the flight?
(a) The company, or
(b) The pilot who proffered the flight?

On to a completely different point: can you avoid "red eyes" at EK?Spilt my coffee all over my keyboard when I read that little gem. Priceless.

Junior, I did a flight recently where there was this big yellow thingie high up in the sky. It was huge, at least twice the size of a full moon, (on which I, like most EK pilots, am an authority). Had to ask the other pilot what it was. I had seen it before, but I thought it only ever appeared REALLY low down in the eastern sky, just peeking above the eastern horizon, after a really long night flight. The other pilot told me that it actually gets as high as right overhead, then drops towards the western horizon in what he called "afternoon".

It might be true, but I think he was having me on.

[Fart Master]

7x7... that was just 'plane' funny, the not so funny thing is, is that when I have finally done a.... now what's it called????..... ah yes a 'day' flight, I have often asked my collegue "WTF is that bright thing up there, it's bloody annoying, can't get to sleep and all that":ok:

[JuniorMan]

Junior, I did a flight recently where there was this big yellow thingie high up in the sky. It was huge, at least twice the size of a full moon, (on which I, like most EK pilots, am an authority). Had to ask the other pilot what it was. I had seen it before, but I thought it only ever appeared REALLY low down in the eastern sky, just peeking above the eastern horizon, after a really long night flight. The other pilot told me that it actually gets as high as right overhead, then drops towards the western horizon in what he called "afternoon".


Now that was funny!! :ok: We have a lot of red-eyes at my airline, but with some seniority it is possible to avoid them with our bidding system. Generally the most junior get stuck with them on the 737 fleet, but on the 757/767 fleet it takes much more seniority to avoid.

[uspilot]

If you want to commute try Cathay, You bid for super compact roster and will get 14 to 15 days off in a row. or just bid for N.America base. :ok:

[CitationTen]

Is there anyone at EK that is actively commuting that can answer some questions for me? A pm would be very much appreciated!

[Wiley]

Junior (or anyone), can you answer 7x7's question, (before he digressed with the 'big yellow thing' story)?

Who pays in CX if a pilot takes a flight proffered by another pilot?

[Bring Back The Biff]

Sorry chaps - the pilot who proffers the flight pays the applicable rate.

Bottom line is, if you want someone else to do your work, then you have to pay for it...