What's a typical daily schedule of a BA Shorthaul Pilot ?

[Speedbird744]

What's a typical daily schedule of a BA Shorthaul Pilot, for example on the A320?
How many cities does the SH pilot fly to a day? Does the pilot stay there for sometime?

[IceViper]

Bloody Hard Work, A couple & Sometimes

[eeper]

Generally each day is a multi-sector day. Anything up to a 4 sector day is possible although there are some 5 sector days floating around. (I'm led to believe that some other operators have 6 sector days)

If its a straight forward there and back then you will have a minimal time at the airport. Somewhere in the region of 1 hour is typical for a turnround, but, again, there are a few rogue trips around were the turnround is longer.

If you're getting off then the nightstop must be a minimum of 12 hours which, allowing for transport time, is barely enough to get a quick pint in before you head for bed. Most nightstps are longer than this (about 16 hours is my average) and once in a while you will get a really decent stop or even a standover. The smaller the fleet the better the nightstops tend to be as the frequency of the aircraft flying that route is reduced. Thus the A320 gets plenty of standovers, but as the 757 fleet reduces you can expect to see longer stops and more standovers there.

Essentially, most nightstops are long enough to get out and see something of the town or get a bite to eat. Often there will be two crews staying in the hotel: An early crew who will arrive at about 1600 local and depart at about 0600 and a late crew who arrive at about 2100 and depart anywhere between midday and 1700 the next day. Guesss which is more popular...

[Denti]

Whats your standard turnaround-time then? We at Deutsche BA have 30 minutes domestic turnaround and 45 minutes international turnaround. Thats standard, some turnarounds are longer.

Denti :rolleyes:

[Human Factor]

eeper,

Don't forget BAR with our 5 sector days and a working agreement that allows the company to breach all sorts of rules that would cause a riot at LHR!! :rolleyes:

[eeper]

AF1,

My apologies. I should have added that the hours I described were what I experience flying the 757 out of LHR.

Denti

The standard (i.e scheduled) turnround is usually at least one hour. Turnrounds at LHR are usually considerably longer

[CRP5]

Ah the luxury of 1 hr just looking at my EOG roster for July and August, at outstations minimum time is 40 mins max 45 mins, at LGW 45 mins the norm , and for airforcenone we are all used to this basic of anomolies checked in the other day to find 5 "warnings" on my schedule. :rolleyes: :confused:

Ahh for the golden runways :D

[52049er]

An average month for me (BA SH)consists of about 19 working days, 6 nightstops, 55 sectors, 75 hrs flying time. Around 10 pre 6.30am local reports, 4 or 5 charter trips to the Med or skiing place in winter. And yes, 4 or 5 5 sector days (start 11.00, finish 21.30, turnarounds in 40 min max).

[Hand Solo]

Aha CRP5! Long time no see! Try a standard 40 minute turnaround mate, reducing to 23mins if your late with a light load. Or two 5 sector days back to back with 13 hours rest between. Or 18 5:45 am reports in a month. Or 5 pre 6am reports followed by 5 sectors on the last day finishing at 9pm. It would be nice to see the warnings on Crewlink, but at the time I report it's usually not working so I have to guess!

Ahh, see how the bitter and twisted crawl out of the woodwork!

Oh yeah, forgot to add that if you're interested in nightstops then we've got Edinburgh, Glasgow and, if you're really lucky, Dusseldorf! Same rain, different city.
[Edited for extreme bitterness!]
:p :rolleyes:

[ 01 August 2001: Message edited by: Hand Solo ]

[CRP5]

Hand solo , thats what happens north of Watford, computers fade, back to yoghurt pots and string!! :D

[flaps]

Hi

I'm on the A319/A320 fleet at LHR and would agree with eeper except that as the 'Bus fleet grows the number of standovers are decreasing but the number of destinations and nightstops are increasing.

We currently nightstop in:

Belfast
Aberdeen
Newcastle
Manchester
Glasgow (not as much)
Oslo
Brussels
Hamburg
Frankfurt
Berlin
Stuttgart
Bologna
Zurich and Geneva (Saturdays only)
Milan

Last winter we had
Cologne
Nice
Copenhagen

In October with the new Winter Schedule we've been told to expect Nice and Copenhagen back, plus Helsinki, Warsaw and a couple of others. Bologna is supposed to be going to EOG. This last paragraph is mainly based on rumours so may not be correct.

Typical daily format either

2 sector return
3x3 sector trip over 2 days
3x2x3 sector trip over 3 days
3x2x4x3 sector trip over 4 days

Also you can add
4 sector returns
3x4x3 trip over 2 days
Other 4 and 5 day combinations
3x1 or 1x3 sector trips over 2 days

Most of these either follow the early or late times that eeper mentioned.

The 3x4x3 trips are hard work but should give you at least 5 take offs and landings in 3 days.

Hope this helps.

[Human Factor]

Hand Solo,

Don't forget Rome .... almost makes up for the rest (but not quite)! :rolleyes:

AFN

[minuteman]

Ah CRP5 I thought you were long gone off and being sensible these days! You should get over here and get on the 737!! European 2 sector days....ahh the duty free is great in Madrid too! Not many overnights available though...

[Flap 5]

40 minute turnarounds! Looxery! Try 20 minute turnarounds. Anyone know which airline, it begins with a little 'e', and we have to lick t' hold clean!

[eeper]

flaps,

You can have the Helsinki nightstop over my dead body. Actually, scratch that, you can have the early HEL, but for gods sake leave us the late one! Best nightstop we do IMHO.

[Pandora]

eeper,

don't know if flaps is right about the 'bus getting HEL, but we've already got it on our late Sept bid pack (737). Its about time you greedy 757 people let us poor lesser mortals have some more scraps. :D

[Hand Solo]

Rome nightstop? Don't make me laugh! You don't get one of those unless you flew the 737! Just an inconvenenient little 4 day trip between your consecutive long weekends off!

[Human Factor]

The trials of the regions eh! Trouble is, you have to turn up before 3pm to do the Rome. :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Fil]

Pandora, eeper + others.

Being Schitzo I have changed, long story. Originally registered as 'Fil' in previous company, then stared OATS and unable to access. Re-registered as 'flaps' and used that name ever since. Less that a year ago revisited previous employer, convinced sys manager to allow me to access old e-mails, got pasword for 'Fil' but never used it.

Now that everyone is talking about member numbers I thought I'd scrap flaps and re use fil, well with a number less than 1000.. Also there are about 4 or 5 variations of flapsX whereas fil is a bit more unique. Don't worry I haven't applied for a sex change at the same time!

Anyway, in answer to your questions HEL as I stated was just a rumour and certainly not before October. We've got at least 5 new A319's before the end of the year so during the winter we'll be getting new routes.

Apparently no more A319's from Jan, all of next years orders have been changed to new A320's. These are supposed to fully utilise the 2nd video IFE system so it's TV whilst you fly as well as the moving map. Also they may have laptop power supplies in Club. This last item may be rumoured but with a better IFE we've heard that BA will want to use them on some of the longer shorthaul routes such as Athens, Larnaca (an extra flight not instead of the 767s), Moscow (not for a while), and Istanbul. I'm not expecting any of these for quite a while, maybe more than a year away.

[Pandora]

Hi Fil,

don't let the identity crisis get you down.

As for the current fleet mix - who knows? Even MJ didn't know before he left. They sell 757s, then they buy some more. On my little 'fill the gaps' fleet we work hard, then not at all, then hard again. I don't mind, we get variety (and definitely HEL ;) ). Maybe they won't get rid of the 757s after all. Then I won't have to fly your computer operated thingies when they get rid of the 737 fleet. :D

[Fil]

Hi Pandora

How's things? Still haven't seen you around in the last year!

I always thought they were keeping a reduced number of 757's so you don't have to fly the computer thingies. It does have a table though, but that doesn't stop me getting food all over myself.

[Fil]

Just downloaded the Oct01 bid pack. During the 2nd half of the month the Airbus routes include:

CGN day trips and split duties
PRG night stops and standovers
WAW night stops
ARN night stops
AMS day trips
FCO day trips and night stops
MUC night stops
BUD night stops
ZRH night stops
CPH night stops are back
NCE night stops are back

and....HEL night stops and stand over (although the stand over day is 1st of Nov so maybe a one off)

Obviously these aren't Airbus-only trips but these are the additions to the route structure mentioned in an earlier posting.

Oh and the downside is that I have never seen so many single day trips! Being a tour'er I'm going to have a few more journeys to work than normal.

[ 21 August 2001: Message edited by: Fil ]

[eeper]

Looking at the 757 Oct01 bidbpack it would appear that HEL has gone for good. There are one or two daytrips and thats it.
On the plus side there are a LOT of CPH nightstops sneaking in towards the end of the month - I'd like to get that one back!

As for the rest of it, all standard stuff really as far as nightstops go. FCO, ZRH, MAD, ARN, IST, VIE and many others. Also there are quite a few Scottish nightstops in there - something to do with the forthcoming Scottish base closure, although I had been led to believe that the 757 was no longer to do the Shuttle routes.

[Pandora]

Fil and eeper, (and anyone else who's interested)

Looking at my Oct 737 bid pack and can't decide if I want the Rome or Budapest standovers most. On the one hand I love the baths in BUD, but on the other, I've never seen the Coliseum. We have also acquired WAW, CGN, ZRH (mmm... expenses), EDI, FRA and NCE nighstops, and 100's of HEL nightstops and standovers. Still got lots of positioning though, and also lots of MUC, CPH, VIE and ABZ standovers.

Beats working for a living. :D

[Superpilot]

eeper and pandora,

how many nightstops in a month? (on average)

could we see your rosters please? :D ;) :D

[Pandora]

Superpilot,
no nightstops at all so far in Aug, I'm on reserve. In July I had 14, but that was exceptional, and in Sep I have 6 nights away, which is a bit more normal. I don't want to give my full roster as that would give too many clues about me, but here is a typical snippet.

Fri Off
Sat MAN
Sun ZRH, BRU nighstop
Mon home then GLA
Tue BLQ, MUC nightstop
Wed day off in MUC - mmm, beer :D
Thur Home then GVA
Fri Hols

I will be on reserve for 2 days, on holiday for 3, I'll fly 34 sectors to 6 countries and have 10 days off if you don't include my hols, 2 days of which will be weekend days. I do have a crafty split duty for one weekend which means I won't leave the house until 6pm Sat and will be home again before 9am Sun, just in time to make Mr Pandora breakfast in bed :D

Hope this helps you get a better idea of what we get up to.

[Superpilot]

Indeed.

Thank you very much Pandora, I've never had the opportunity to ask such questions. Always nice to know! Ever taken Mr Pandora away with you? (would you?)

Again, thanks.
;)

[Pandora]

Superpilot,
the answer is yes. Mr Pandora is a karaoke king and is a willing subject in all 'how much can he drink' experiments, which means he provides endless entertainment for the captain and CC. He sat on the flight deck once for landing, said it was good enough for him and he doesn't need to see any more. He'd rather have his club tray and free champagne. He still hasn't lived down the time he forgot his passport, though.

[eeper]

Superpilot,

I'm not to keen to put my roster up to public scrutiny. However I can tell you that September will bring with it a total of 6 nightstops. That's one 2-day, one 3-day and one 4-day trip. The rest of the month is all daytrips and, quite depressingly, almost all of the trips are early starts.

I have found that the number of nightstops on my fleet (757/767) is decreasing. When I started training almost all of my work was European tours while at the moment the daytrip rules supreme. That said, we do get the opportunity to do some longhaul out of LGW which makes up for it.

eeper

[Shuttle nine Tango]

If as eeper suggested earlier the plan is to remove the 757 from shuttle operations, will this mean a reappearance of the 767 on the odd trip?