W work patterns

[170to5]

Hi all

Just a quick one - just interested to find out what airlines, flying long-haul, operate their crews on a 'W' pattern (eg LGW-JFK-MAN-JFK-LGW) and out of those carriers that do, what pre- and post- rest agreements are there?

Would be interesting to see what crews working these pattern thought of them too...

170

[Mr Angry from Purley]

BA operate quiet a few such examples i.e. LHR-States-LHR-States-LHR with 24hr layovers in each station. Not sure about pre and post rest but suspect the trips are accepted by crew because of the time off.
It's actually quiet difficult to schedule "back to back" trips within UK CAP371 with a 2 pilot op because of the un-acclimatised rules. :\

[suasdaguna]

i hear aer lingus are introducing w patterns for crews??

[Cavallier]

If I get them Cathay Pacific W patterns give me between 7 and 10 days off after.

The Cav:cool:

[170to5]

suasdaguna - are they now? fancy that, what a coincidence between me asking about w working patterns and a notice on the company portal the other day, talking about that very thing...!

cavallier, thanks for that, just out of interest, when you do a w pattern, how long does your 'tour' tend to last?

i believe that my unnamed, green, short haul and transatlantic employer operates its airbus widebodies differently to most carriers - i understand that a lot of carriers who do oprate 'w's also crew their aeroplanes more heavily than we do. obviously this is beyond the scope of this topic but it's interesting to see how widespread w pattern are! it's also interesting to find out what the crews who operate them think about them - are they cr@p or do crews prefer a long away trip followed by a long home stay?