Jumpseat Ride Policy?

[Stan Woolley]

I'm a 737 Captain with Ryanair, I'd like to ask about ATC jumpseat rides.

If you are a current London controller, when did you last have a jumpseat ride and who was it with?

If you would like to but can't where is the problem?

[goatface]

I work at a UK regional airport and a couple airlines who offer us jump seat rides but others either make it so beaurocratic and/or that we still have to pay passenger taxes, that it's not worth it.
The management at Flybe have made it very difficult or nearly impossible to get jump seat rides, (all we wanted was round trips without disembarking).
At first they told us that the throughput of very inexperienced first officers made it impracticle to have flight deck visitors and that's completely understandable, but that was nearly three years ago.
Others prioritise their own staff, again, if it's pilots etc then it's perfectly understandable, but I'd wager that there's more to be gained by ATCOs being on the flight deck for 2 -3 hours on a round trip than cabin crew or ground staff.

[arrffaa]

from 1997 to 2001, I flew with brymon airways between newcastle and southampton. in those 4 years I had approximatley 200 flights with them, at least 90% of which were on the flight deck jump seat. in the end I had more hours on a dash 8 flight deck than some of the first officers and learnt more about aviation in that time than in the previous 25 years!

flight deck jump seat rides are absolutley essential for atcos and flight crew in my humble opinion. familiarisation flights are all well and good but when you get to know each other (I mean REALLY get to know each other), then we can get down to asking each other some proper operational questions and finding out the real answers! however, with all the restrictions re security / passes / payment / locked flight deck doors it's nigh on impossible to get up the front any more.

I used to just get on board, show my id pass and ask to sit with the flight crew. those days are l-o-n-g gone which is VERY disappointing. :sad:

my sincere thanks to all the flight crew I got to know at brymon - I miss you all a lot

[121decimal375]

My understanding was that RYR were taking part in the FAM flight scheme for NATS. there was one of our controllers on the Bournemouth to Prestwick in the jump seat last week I think!

[Quintilian]

In Norway we're allowed 1 "study-trip" a year with both SAS and Widerøe. I've never used these myself, but whenever I am "out and about" I'm frequently flying the jumpseat. At last count I was at 39 legs (in less than 2 years).

/TH

[Stan Woolley]

Well thanks for the responses but either:-

1) Very few want to/ can be bothered telling me their experience.

or

2) The situation is wholly unsatisfactory. (IMO)

A lot could be gained both ways from these flights and my personal impression is that they would be very helpful to all concerned.

Would guys be prepared to give up a day off to go on a round trip somewhere?

[ILS 119.5]

I think fam flights are of paramount importance. If our companies cannot let ATCO's see the sim, then let them come on the flight deck. This is all about safety. I'm sure there would be no problem with company id etc and correct arrangements. We should all push to brimg this back. I would, and I'm sure my passengers would be pissed off if we crashed due to lack of controller knowledge of what is going on. Having said all that and knowimg how the management of companies work, they will probably wait until the accident has happened and then come up with the idea that they should have fam flights. But after 20 years experience I know that our more experienced managers (less years than many of us) will disagree. We have a choice, petition through the pilots and controllers association or wait for the accident. Up to you.

[wanderingdon]

As stated by someone else, NATS are putting a bit more effort into getting the fam flight scheme up and running again. Think it had been neglected way too long in my opinion.

Sadly, its very likely that new controllers may now have a licence without ever having sat in a cockpit which I'm sure you'd agree is far from ideal.

I was lucky enough that I went on the BA course at Heathrow which involved four fam flights and some sim time. Sadly, this has now been cut from ATCO training.

I must admit that sometimes the airlines don't make it easy either. Know of at least two controllers who had booked and paid for flights and tried to get a flightdeck visit through a contact of a watch supervisor at Swanwick. The controllers got a curt reply from the airlines involved (2 diff big british carriers) saying they couldn't accomadate their request.

Hopefully the situation improves asap.

[Tail-take-off]

At bmi we actively encourage controllers to fly with us. For security reasons it has to be done through official channels. Get your manager to write to our ATC Liason Officer.

[alfaman]

"Very few want to/ can be bothered telling me their experience." - a bit harsh - you only posted 8 hrs back! We don't all live on line...
Personally, I don't get the chance very often, so when I do I jump at it. My last was last winter, organised unofficially with RYR, through a contact with the base captain. Very helpful & useful. Prior to that, pretty much wrecked by 9/11, prior to that, yes, had a few & always got benefit, & had regular opportunities to sit in on LOFT training, again, very helpful both ways.

[BwatchGRUNT]

It not that easy. Last one I went on was several years ago. Return from Gatwick to Glasgow - so no jolly by any imagination, just wanted to maximise the time on my own sectors so questions were understood both ways.

Got up early on my day off, to travel eventually at NATS expense what a hassle that was to get authorised. It was an official trip arranged with the airline.

Got to the gate, they new nothing about me, crew were waiting in ops but I had been told nothing about this. Despite several requests at the gate and eventually through the despatcher I was told the jump seat was most unlikely!! Nearly went home at that point, persevered - got on the plane and met the crew who obvioulsy knew the score. Long day, hour plus drive home then the expense claim to submit and ensueing arguement about why they should pay after they had agreed to do so.

Might explain the lack of uptake.

Personally I think every two years or so it should be rostered, with expenses on one of our extra non operatinal duties - management normally end up writing these off due to one fook up or another, so at least get them booked and used for the value and benefit of all concerned

[ImnotanERIC]

why not every year on a rostered non op day. truce is necessary, truce feed is not. I know of many truce feed sessions where people turn up and the place is a shambles. My last truce feed for example, I had to do south and capital bandboxed without any strips, not being valid on capital. brilliant. even better than that was the LL apc controller who was asked to do essex. Is this a good use of non op extra days. when there are APS who are paid to do feed sectors going on double breaks because there are atcos in doing the feed?? As always though, NATS will just ignore any suggestion like this and carry on writing off one day or in some cases two.
A friend recently received an email about official fam flights and ba short haul, flybe and one other (i forget) were the airlines currently available for swanwickers.
i dont remember any mention of ryanair or bmi. I could be wrong though as despite two requests for information when available about fam flights form our official coordinator, i got c*ck all and so this is second hand info.

[mr.777]

Did one with BA last year and have another one with them in 2 weeks time.
Organised both these myself though after finding the right person to contact at BA, who was extremely helpful.
Fam flight itself went very smoothly. Crew were great, knew I was coming (as did dispatcher at the gate) and made me feel very welcome. Even managed to make NATS cough up expenses for car parking & fuel. Got fed and watered royally on both sectors so BA gets a big thumbs up from me.:ok:

On a serious note, it was very worthwhile for me and even the crew said they got something out of it as they were able to learn a bit more about procedures and why it is that we do what we do.

RYR are not in the fam flight list. Stan Woolley, I would suggest you get your head of flight ops to have word with somebody at NATS if you want to get your lot involved. With the amount of people at Swanwick who live near Bournemouth, I am sure there would be no shortage of takers.

[MH132]

I'm not a London Controller, but ATCO at a quite small airfield in Germany where RYR is flying to.

I would defintely spend more than one day off for the chance of a familiarisation flight. Any ideas how to arrange such a flight?

Michael

[Jagohu]

Well said, that it's very beneficial for both sides... I see the biggest problem in actually knowing what the "official channels" are. There're no contacts, just usually nothing to start off with.
I sometimes try to go for a cockpit visit when I fly somewhere, so ticket purchased on the normal price, nothing out of order. The most difficult thing is to find the person responsible for arranging the visit to the cockpit.
Pilots usually don't know who is that person, sometimes they don't even know their OPS' phone number... An IBE pilot gave me the phone nr from the website to try to contact OPS - after half an hour of listening to options I gave up...

Our managers are not really interested in arranging these visits, they have their own things to do, I don't blame them for that. It's not a big issue to write an email or to call as long as we know who...

At least I learned something today - I didn't know there was such a thing as ATC liaison officer at an airline... Is that common?

[Gingerbread Man]

Is it possible or any less bureaucratic for ATCOs to sit in on sim checks? The TRUCE benefits of that would be quite large I would have thought.

Cheers

Ginger ;)

[chiglet]

At MACC, we were offered Fam Flts with RYR. I [along with several colleagues] applied for a Ff [with alternative dates included] and got Zilch,zero etc response....:confused: