Ratio of pilots employed to aircraft

[acunningham]

What would be a typical ratio of line pilots employed by an airline for a particular model of aircraft, to number of aircraft in service? Or to put it another way, how many flight crews does a single airliner typically need?

Does short haul versus long haul (longer turnarounds, but need to consider crew sleep cycles) make a difference?

[Denti]

Union wise we usually calculate 5 crews per shorthaul aircraft and around 10 to 12 per longhaul. MFF between shorthaul and longhaul is a bit more difficult as it depends on the ratio between long- and shorthaul flying, but somewhere between 7 and 8,5 crews per aircraft should be ok.

In reality you need a few more captains than FOs as most trainers and nearly all management pilots are CPTs and can only fly part time. However longhaul which augments crews with senior FOs needs more FOs than captains. All in all not allways an easy topic.

[acunningham]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for!