flydubai 787
 

hello

ive read the news and it says delivery 2026

any idea when they will start taking applications for 787? is it this year or next year and when they will start operations

thank you

Unlikely the 787 will open up to outsiders, you have a Q of around 1,000 current flydubai pilots whom are eagerly awaiting fleet transfer.

it will be crew’d internally for many years to come with only a few frames coming in per year.

come back again in 2030 and see whats happening then.

From what I’ve heard no applications onto the 787’s. Only onto 737. For now, never say never. Still far away.

Interesting take on things. Majority of FZ pilots have little to no wide body experience. Do you propose that they just start flying a new aircraft with new type ratings with zero experience? My guess is that there will have to be some external recruitment of experiences 787/777 pilots initially.

I heard they will hire people with widebody experience both captains and fos, with no upgrades within unless they have widebody experience

Struggle to see what ‘widebody experience’ has to do with anything nowadays. If you can fly a 737 you can fly anything 🥴 Ask any pilot who’s moved from the 737 to ANYTHING else and I’m sure they’ll tell you it’s a pleasure.

But seriously at many major airlines you can skip narrow body FO to wide body FO and go straight to narrow body command. Then when your seniority number is up go straight to a wide body command, having never sat in the pointy end of a 2 aisle aircraft.

I think the whole widebody experience historically was more to do with the vast parts of the world you would travel to on widebody aircraft and the experience that came with that. Oceanic operations, ETOPS, different RARs in exotic parts of the world, crossing vast mountain ranges and dealing various weather phenomena around the world. In the past that sort of experience could only be gathered on a big bird.

At flydubai you can cover all that in a couple of weeks on the 737. Even NAT-HLA ops is there as they do their own deliveries. I think the main difference for the pilots is that the 78 will be easier to fly 🙃. Oh, and they won’t feel so tired with the 5000FT cabin and there is a place to go for a nap.

So I’d imagine they will need to be a handful of 787 folk brought in to get the operation started as any operator would need when operating a new type. Thereafter it will be upgrades from within. For sure to satisfy insurance you’d need 2-3000 hours command on the 73 to move to left seat on the 78. No problem there as there are 100s of pilots at FZ with 1000s of command hours on the Boeing.

Many got upgraded straight to the LHS wide body but it takes many hours of line traing. For airlines its easier and cheaper to hire experienced skippers unless we talk legacy airlines where your career path is well designed.
Some airlines take shortcuts and later you can hear stories about those captains america.

Na. It would be a standard 20 sectors. Airlines do it all the time. 73 to 76, 77 or 78. A320 to A330. Qatar has been taking 737 Capts directly into the left seat of the 78 or the triple for years. It’s all about having Boeing or Airbus time nowadays.

Shortcuts would be taking direct entry Captains from other airlines who are unfamiliar with the operation. Much rather type their own tried and tested 737 skippers who have been working for the company for at least 6 or 7 years. Airlines introduce new types and train their own all the time.

What about airlines that fly Boeing and Airbus? They move A330 skippers onto 787s. 777 skippers onto A380s. They manage with minimal fuss and surely changing philosophy’s is a far greater (and riskier) challenge than moving a 737 guy onto a 78.

Like I said, they’ll bring some trainers in and maybe some direct entries in with experience to get the thing going. Then it’ll be in house. Like every other airline.

You fail to understand that flying a wide body is a skill, you have to be born with, and cannot be acquired...

it seems they will get people in-house with previous wide-body experience onto the 787 first regardless of seniority, then taking guys based on seniority

Unfortunately I have to disagree. Flydubai does not invest in their pilots. Instead of giving them the type rating, they might consider getting type rated captains, which is cheaper, the Flydubai way. That is how they select SFI, and training captains.

No one knows yet, however, someone mentioned they need to get rated pilots or with widebody hours. It makes sense to me, considering that most pilots around 95% don’t have widebody experience

Except they got a bunch of ex Varig ULR guys who use to do wide body back in the day,... it's just a new aircraft. Remember, they are in my eyes the most exposed 737 crews in the world. From monsoon in india to minimums in icing in moscow the next day. From -30 to +40. From Mogadishu to Prague. Hard to find other 737 drivers who get this much exposure.

yeah, wide body is simple! if u fly 737 not even TR required! there have been a few airlines thinking it's that straightforward. QR for the record stopped taking narrow body cptns straight to LH for the widebody. They learned their lesson.

This is incorrect, several DEC’s on the 777 from VA as we speak.

Don’t forget — most of them were only FOs, and on a type that doesn’t even fly passengers anymore! 😉