Duration of BA short haul trips

[bobshop]

I have been looking at the sample schedules for Delta on www.jetcareers.com and they are mostly 4 day trips with 3 days off (total 15 off per month). This is for domestic flights. For pilots flying say 737s for BA out of Gatwick, how long are the trips? Also, how much flying does BA do between european destinations?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Piper Warrior Pilot]

Talking about short haul trips, the shortest scheduled flight in the World is operated by British Airways between two islands north of Scotland. I think the trip takes 7.5 minutes or something stupid like that. Its definately under 10 minutes.

[Leslie]

I think it is a BN Islander from Logan Air ( a BA franchise-not mainline!) and the track distance is shorter than 27R runway at Heathrow. The sector time could be 10 minutes but even the Islander should be able to do that distance in less than 10'
Naturally nothing to do with the question first posed!
Yours aye,
leslie

[canberra]

there an item in todays mail on sunday on the worlds shortest scheduled flight. its in the orkneys and is under 2 minutes!

[sickBocks]

Westray to Papa Westray.
Scheduled at 2 minutes, record 58 seconds.

[bobshop]

Thank you. All very interesting. I guess there aren't any BA pilots in the house to answer the original question.

Never mind.

[Hand Solo]

Between 5 hours and 5 days, depending on where you fly. Shortest trips I know of are from the soon to be defunct bases of BHX and MAN, where an early 2 sector day would report at, say, 0530 and you could be clear by 1000 (sounds easy, but they are despised for complex rostering reasons). After that you might get a 3 sector day leading to a nightstop, or a 4 sector day that could easily be 12 hours on duty or more. Tours generally are 3 sectors day one, 2 to 4 sectors on middle days and 3 sectors on the last day. This pattern also applies at LGW/LHR with more of a tendency towards 2 sectors on the intermediate days. At LHR there are very few 4 sector days with tours following the 3,2,...,3 pattern and occasionally some positioning. This is because the size and scale of LHR make it practically inpossible to turn around an aircraft quickly enough to accomplish four sectors in a legal duty day, plus many of the sectors are relatively long for short haul. Positioning still exists because we operate three short haul types at LHR (A319/320, 737, 757/767) and when the aircraft change to meet pax demand then crew end up in the wrong places. Generally in BA you'll spend much more time away from home than in low cost operators because of the route structure and a corporate strategy to be the first and last airline into London on a working day. You'll also tend to do fewer sectors than the low costs (because of the increased turnaround times) but the sectors will be longer and more varied. Additionally, BA tends to operate a significant service over Christmas, so expect to see BA crews stuck alone in hotels all over Europe on 25th December. Hope this gives you a better insight!

[bobshop]

Thank you for that information. That really helps. The other thing is, could you settle the debate I am having with my family of whether or not BA flies between destinations within mainland Europe. I guess it would make sense if they did, but I don't know.

Thanks again,

bob

[Landing_24R]

Hi bobshop,

BA don't operate point to point services between destinations in Europe. What your family might be thinking of is the likes of Deutsch BA, who are the German 'branch' of BA (soon to be painted a nice shade of easy orange, if easyjet complete their option to buy the company) and do operate domestic routes in Germany, as well as from Germany to Europe - specifically to places like Malaga, and the odd flight to Turkey as well I believe. Mostly though it's German domestic routes. BA also have a Scandinavian branch, they used to be called Sun Air, and operate ATP's and Jetstreams around Scandanavia and also to the UK on behalf of BA.

So in a way, yes, BA do have aircraft flying around Europe, but they are not mainline BA aircraft- they are operated by other companies, often in the BA livery. Until recently, Air Liberte was another example of this, in France. It's now been rebranded as Air Lib, and as far as I know isn't assosciated with BA any longer, although I may well be wrong.

The aircraft of all these companies are not UK registered- they belong to the respective companies.

Hope that helps,

Landing_24R