VS Flight Deck Policy
 

What is Virgin Atlantic's policy on allowing people to sit on the cockpit jumpseat during their flights?

I was on the top deck of one of their 744 flights to LAS last week and 2 mothers of the cabin crew sat in the flight deck for the duration of the entire flight. I thought the new rules said you had to hold a valid pilots licence and be an airline employee??

BWB

Really? I thought there was a curtain between the passengers and the flight deck door or are you one sad git who spends their entire time trying to get a look at what the pilots are doing.
How do you know they were mothers? Did they have stickers on the back of their heads.

Excuse me but I'm actually a commercial airline pilot, however I do not work for VS thats why I asked. There was no need to be rude.

It was quite obvious that they stayed in the flight deck, as they did make quite a fuss about going in and out.

I knew they were mothers cos I heard one of the cabin crew introduce them to another cabin crew member!

It's about time some so called 'professionals' actually showed some respect for other professionals instead of acting like spoilt children and just writing abusive posts.

BWB

Without being rude, maybe you could "de-identify" your post somewhat. By doing so you may be protecting your fellow commercial pilots who might have been "stretching" some rules to get people to, errr, "a destination".

NoD

If it is true then I believe it's more of a 'break' than a 'stretch' in the rules.

I don't work for VS, I was just on their flight as my company couldn't get me back, and I am grateful that they let me on (and they put me in Premium!).

BWB

Those US and UK rules show how hysteric this thread meanwhile went.

regards

BWBriscoe
If you reckon it's a "break" then why are you so intent on losing the guy his job by effectively identifying him? And/or being so dim as to not realise what others are telling you on this forum about your post.

To then say and continue to try to stuff the crew is beyond belief

NoD

Virgins Ops Manual part A, regulation 8.3.13.2.c (Rev 15, 22 April 2003) would appear to allow this if the 'mothers' were registered staff travellers. I don't know if there's been a later revision to this rule.

BWB. Virgin were kind enough to upgrade you and now you want to land the guys in the s##t.
Where exactly were you sitting? Do you realise that staff are allowed to sit in jumpseats on the upper deck which are not in the flight deck?
If airlines are kind enough to upgrade staff from other airlines for no other reason than to be decent to all industry employees then keep your mouth shut. It's people like you that could stop the rest of us getting upgrades.

Hold your horses everybody!

the chap just asked a question... a valid one I might add, If the pilots were at fault by going against company regulation, it's only takes one person to admit it and he will probably quit.


as far as bening or breaking is concerned, maybe they should have considered a pilot being on the upper deck, so they should have been a little more discreet in their handling..

Disagree 100%. This is a Professional Pilots' forum, not a "sneaking to headmaster" place where we try and drop our colleagues in the s**t.

Sorry - are pilots to be regarded like policeman / CAA inspectors etc. whose job is to highlight and publicise every little rule infraction? I don't get you point at all - if I were to consider a pilot observing any misdemeanours of mine, I would hope they would have the common sense and decency not to blag about it, or publicise it. I am obvioulsy much mistaken, judging by your, and BB's attitude....

The question could have been posed without identifying the carrier, route, type and date well enough to easily identify the Flight Crew concerned... As it appears now, no wrong doing occurred, but BB wasn't to know that with his crass starting post

NoD

Come off it guys. The guy just asked a question? An innocent and real question. He wasn't nasty in doing so, so why give him the barracking that you are (especially your immediate retort srjumbo).

NoD - not like you to be so cruel. We all look upon you as a sensible headmaster in all of your other posts. Had a bad day?

So, anyone know the answer to the original question?????????

What BWB has done is:
1. Ask a question - fair enough. We'll all try to answer it.
2. State in the orginal question, and reinforce it later, that he thinks the guy has broken a significant security rule.
3. Identify quite clearly, and quite unnecessarily, the individual Captain and Flt Crew members concerned.

I have no problem with 1 & 2. I have immense problems with 3. He could quite easily have failed to specifically identify the individuals concerned, and has had a very long time to "edit" his post to remove these details if he "wasn't thinking straight" when he posted them. He has deliberately chosen not to...

I can only therefore conclude his motivation is not to ask a question, but ruin someone's (or some people's) career(s). Why he wants to do so I do not know? Especially when he points out the crew helped him out....

Hope that explains my stance...

NoD

Aviaco, I stand by my original posting...... sad people who want to cause trouble whilst being looked after. I recently had our own company staff on cabin jumpseats to allow other airline staff to board and sit on passenger seats (permitted in our ops manual). Just in case someone like BWB has a staff ticket and is trying to get home, as far as I'm concerned, this will not happen again on any flight I'm operating.
Well done BWB!

NoD and srjumbo, I'm with you.....

BWB - 1)if you were in Premium you were not on the upper deck, Premium is on the main deck. 2)there are jumpseats at the forward end of the upper deck, but outside the FD door 3)current CAA security policy does not restrict FD jumpseats to operating crew only

tired, you're wrong. All VS 744s have some premium economy seats on the upper deck. There are no jump seats upstairs other than the two immediately forward of the stairs, there are none behind the flight deck (unlike the old ex-NZ 742s).