Emirates Pilot Rostering DXB - SYD/MEL/BNE - AKL

[mkqq]

Hi all,

I'm always interested in how Emirates rosters their pilots on this route. It takes approximately 13 hours to fly from DXB to any of the major cities on the Australian East Coast, then another 2.5-3 hours to Auckland.

Does the same one set of pilots (or two) fly all the way through to AKL and rest up for 24-48 hours in AKL?

I would think it may be better if the same set of pilots fly from DXB to SYD, rest up for 24 hours in Sydney, and then do the SYD-AKL-SYD trip in one go, which is just under 5 hours of flying, plus ground turnaround time in AKL. Once they get back to SYD, rest up for another 24 hours or so, then fly back to Dubai.

Does anybody know how it's done on this route?

Just purely out of my curiosity.

[Dale Hardale]

This is some years ago:

2 Crews operated on the aircraft, an 'A' crew and a 'B' crew. The nominated Captain was the 'A' crew Captain. The 'B' crew was effectively the backup crew.

The 'A' crew flew DXB - SYD/MEL had 38 hours off and then operated as the 'A' crew back to DXB with a different 'B' crew.

The 'B' crew had 24 hours off in SYD/MEL and then operated one sector as a command crew SYD/MEL - AKL/CHC.

Another 24 hours off and operated back to SYD/MEL.

Another 24 hours off and then operated as a 'B' crew with a different 'A' crew back to DXB.

I found operating as a 'B' crew meant undesirable crew rest times on the long haul sectors, with the added NZ sectors contributing to some jet lag on arrival back in DXB.

Operating as an 'A' crew meant reasonable crew rest times, plus a single long stay (38 hrs) in SYD/MEL and then straight back to DXB with very little jet lag.

Not sure how it works now, given the increase in frequency of services to Australian ports.

[clear to land]

Still operated as above on Aus services. US differs in that Crew A operate out, Crew B operate back. GIG-EZE is done the same as Aus-NZ.

[LW20]

@ clear to land: So the Copilots do not do a landing on these trips?

[donpizmeov]

Yes FOs can do landings on these trips. The crew decides who operates as Pilot flying and Pilot monitoring.