Ryanair & Positioning Pilots
 

I have several acquaintances working for RYR who seem to spend a great deal of their time 'positioning' around Europe on their days off to get to duties rostered from foreign bases.

They seem to be able to turn up at the gate for any company flight, without a boarding card, presumably having cleared security as staff rather than as a passenger and then are automaticly allocated a jumpseat if there is not a seat available in the cabin.

There seems to be some suggestion that they are being carried as a 'supernumerary crew member'. However they appear to be a crew member who has not attended any briefing or indeed even met his fellow crew prior to boarding. He is not present for 'observation duties' and plays absolutely no part in the operation of the aircraft. So being termed supernumerary crew is an extraordinarily tenuous description.

Surely a crew-member who passes through a staff checkpoint to then be miraculously transformed into a passenger is completely circumventing UK DFT security protocols?

When positioning on a 'day off' for a rostered duty is this day then discounted for FTL purposes as a day spent on 'duties at the behest of the company' ???

How does this setup work ?

It DOES work, so, instead of coming on here stirring up something that works pretty well for the hordes of pilots commuting, usually because they cannot get a home base &/or are unwilling to relocate to the base given . . . . . can't you just put a sock in it & leave well alone :oh:


I have reason to question your motives here, and doubt they could be in any way intended to be for the benefit of those involved (which I would hazard a guess you aren't, & if you are , did you never hear the Anglo Saxon saying "don't s**t in your own nest" :ugh: )

Magplug;

Let me educate and enlighten you on both your lack of regulatory knowledge and compassion for those less fortunate to be based near their home:

Regulation (EC) No 300/2008 establishes common basic standards in the field of civil aviation security that are directly applicable in all Member States of the European Union, including the UK. In addition, the Single Consolidated Direction (Aviation) 2010 (SCD) sets out more stringent measures that apply to aircraft in UK airspace and departing UK, and is issued to all airlines via the Security Manager.

Below is an extract from the SCD (Chapter 10, Part C), applicable to aircraft registered outside the UK, when in UK airspace or on the ground in the UK with its engines running:

‘A re-deploying staff member permitted to travel in the flight crew compartment as a passenger shall be permitted to remain in the flight crew compartment only if no seat is available in the passenger compartment.’

If a crew member is traveling to or from duty, they are re-deploying to or from a company assignment.

May I suggest you re-deploy yourself a more worthy assignment !

Magplug,

If you are correct they have no boarding card, how do the staff on the ground after departure know how many souls are on board if the worst should happen? As a non-commercial pilot, it seems strange to me.

I should imagine something as simple and legal as speaking to the flight dispatcher, he adds them on to the load sheet, so they are in the weight and balance,they are in the final figures....fully accounted for.... Fully legal......simples.

Because they are recorded as part of the crew compliment on the load sheet so do appear in THOB.

As far as I know In the UK it's against dft rules or whatever to pass through security in your free time using your ID that is certain, if staff member is intending to travel on FR then surely they must hold a jump seat pass issued by the company in advance whether travel in flightdeck or in cabin and must travel through security airside through normal pax route, so if three or four FR pilots want to travel on jump seats back home and two get offloaded due no seats down back what happens to crew member then stuck airside with no purpose of work and no boarding card?

@ICEHOUSES.
Well they might as well wait for the next flight to STN/DUB for the forthcoming interview.

A better question from the OP might be: why don't all airlines let us do this? It used to work a treat in the US

Oh for F..K sake!

What is your problem Sparkplug and others?!

The system is the only reasonable thing left in aviation, and now some morons are starting to critisize even those sparse rules making our profession still bearable!:ugh::mad::mad:

And you ARE allowed to pass by crew security when positioning to work by the way. I do it bloody every week AND with my water, my deodorant etc...

Within the UK it is illegal to use staff search unless you are listed on the paperwork as operating or supernumerary crew, indeed at LHR if caught you will lose your airside pass.

As management at a previous airline we had discussions with dft about this very subject and it is an absolute no-no, we were told in no uncertain terms that positioning crew must be in possession of a valid boarding card and been through passenger security. Simple as.

Don't forget that any positioning crew on a boarding card (even in uniform) would be subject to airport taxes, maybe that's why Ryanair do it this way but I think they are playing with fire within the UK.

It's been happening in the U.S. For years, your in uniform,fit for work,going to your place of work, you will be listed on the paperwork as crew member..... Indeed I'm sure in the unfortunate case of pilot incapacitation there may be something in the ops manual that would suggest "A positioning pilot, fit to fly may occupy his/her seat in order to continue safe operation of the flight..."

Also,I would say that an airline that has 300+ aircraft, 2000 flights a day etc is not really in the habit of doing something illegal in the eyes of the DFT Numerous times EVERY DAY, for the last 20 odd years! If the authorities/security had a problem with this then it would have been addressed by now don't you think.......

I think the question is that if they are recorded as being part of the crew - why doesn't the flight count for FTL purposes? You can't have it both ways.

About 15 years ago I worked airside at LHR. It was clearly explained I could not use my airside pass unless performing my normal duties (work for HMG), it was not to be used in my free time. Same for staff parking - no free staff car park while on 2 weeks holiday. If FR have people without boarding cards and not functioning as crew, going airside, (understood they should be on the load sheet if they get a seat anywhere onboard) it would seem to me to be in breach of the regs.
Can anyone explain why/how its legal?
I am not FR bashing, just concerned/interested.

Well that's rubbish, unless you're telling me that none of the dispatchers, caterers, base managers etc are using staff search.

If the excuse by the cheap suits at DfT were to do with security, I might have limited sympathy. But tax? FFS! Collect it properly! Some of these people need to be kicked, literally kicked out of their endless flipping meetings and dragged, by the ear, over to where the professionals are trying to get the flipping job done.

The US Cargo carriers set up a good way of getting around on their network around Germany, France ,UK etc.
It should be a piece of cake for the Low cost carriers to do something like it.

Actually that is rubbish. See HMRC Air Passenger Duty Exemptions

@1604
You seem to be confusing other airport staff with those staff members actually travelling on flights as a passenger. Agree with your rant about the DFT suits though.



I believe RYR actually are enjoying it both ways.... It is just that the Airport security heads, CAA, DFT and Border Force have yet to catch up what they are doing.

There's a clear abuse here. If your roster shows you as being on a day off, I can't under any circumstances see that it's legitimate to walk through the staff security channel in uniform, walk onto the flightdeck and travel as though you were positioning staff on duty. Remember also that a contractor isn't an employee either.

Also clear problems with duty hours, days off etc. RYR are enjoying it more ways than one and it's the crew that suffers and are ultimately responsible for breaking dft rules. Sooner this is exposed the better for everyone.

If you are that deeply concerned are you going to stop all the long haul guys that operate out of London (for instance) spending many hours to drive to London down any number of motorways before they report for duty (or pop into a Travelodge for a nights kip). I know where I'd rather sit as I commuted and its not down the M1 and round the M25......

Reciprocal agreements with other carriers would be a relief.

If it's totally legit, then fair enough. Though I don't see how it can be, in more ways than one.

I always take more of an interest when folks try to immediately shut down discussions with phrases like "put a sock in it" or "redeploy yourself!"

Doesn't make them sound confident of the legalities, does it?

If it ain't legal, it's an abuse, and shouldn't be happening.

It's either legal or it isn't. If it's legal then there is nothing to worry about and those calling for people to put a sock in it are just making it look suspicious. If it isn't legal then pointing out that some others may also be doing something else that contravenes the rules will not make it any more legal. Two wrongs do not make a right. The more people shout against this the more guilty they look. Let the light of day in, let the regulators look at it - if it's all above board there is nothing to fear.

There is a reciprocal thread on a similar theme in Frbrant Harbour.Maybe the authorities are starting to tighten up ?

Perhaps if FR were to be stopped from doing this it would put an end to some of their more obscene employment practices as well ?

it's totally legal as long as the crew is on the GD. our outfit requires us to make a request to the company a week before we want to travel as non ops crew. no problems. no need for boarding pass.

Regarding FTL however, we are considered as starting duty at the sign on time of the crew operating that flight. If this is not happening at FR then it leaves the Positioning crew exposed in case of an incident.

You do not sign on "on duty" when you leave home for a 2 hr slog down the motorway, so, unless the company have rostered you, you are neither on duty when you climb on board a flight (of "your" choice ) to make the journey from where you live, to where you commence your work.

Thinking Colgan accident here, it would be remit of any of us to present ourselves for work fatigued due excessive commuting, but, it is the individuals responsibility, and cannot be counted as duty, you could have come the night before, then what ? we are going to start arguing about min rest etc ? get real.

Facilitating your travel free & ticketless, is one of the few outwardly generous things Ryanair do, and they are not by nature generous, so why ? the simple answer is that it has given them flexibility, and helped them in persuading bods to base themselves everywhere under the sun, because it was always "commutable" for free. It also provides a handy unofficial standby crew member if one FD crew goes "tech", in which case of course the Supernumary crew member would then be on duty & it would impinge on his projected further duty, but you wouldn't hear the company complaining.

For those of you not too long in aviation, you have perhaps not identified the fact that many administration/ ground based types have an unconditional loathing/jealousy (God knows why ? ) of aircrew. If the current system, which has been widely used for decades, hasn't rung any alarm bells, why are some of you coming on here ringing them loudly to gain attention ? some strange ulterior motive there ? do you actually want to restrict one of the few freedoms we benefit from ? can't figure you guys out :rolleyes:

I used to see guys jumpseating in on a late flight to do earlys the next day after only a few house sleep then once the 5 day pattern was over they would jump seat home on a late flight after an early duty. These guys looked constantly fatigued.

I believe it does say somewhere in Part A that your not supposed to do this but I would guess that's only to prevent canceled flights disrupting the schedule in case you don't make your duty

A good friend of mine was once told by his base captain that he will be removed from his duty because he flew in on a late from STN to do an early the next day but ended up doing the duty still because the base captain was told it's none of your business how he gets to work. He could have driven all through the night and you would not have known.

Legal or not I can't say. Personal opinion is that it most definitely should not be allowed. You have to be in full uniform and available to assist with monitoring refuelling or walk around a etc so I suppose that makes you active crew. However it does not count as FDP! So there not paying the game right that way I suspect.

My guess is that if it was removed as a privalage and had to be rostered it would cost Ryanair so much time and hassle that the 5/4 roster would have to be scrapped and that would lose them a huge amount of crew that only work in FR because of the jumpseating 5/4 option. Likely planes would be parked up due lack of crew and expansion slow or even retract. You can't have that many airframes without the crew.

A lot of smaller Italian bases struggle for crew as no one really wants to be there. 5/4 you can jump in and out and earn a crust. Lose the option and i would guess most will jump out and apply elsewhere

Let's not confuse two issues here.....

I am a commuter - It is a lifestyle choice usually for reasons of family location. From my experience commuting more than one time zone is barely do-able and as EASA has added responsibilities on the shoulders of the operators, those who are long-haul commuting are now very much under the spotlight.

There is a huge difference between choosing to commute from home to a foreign base where you carry out blocks of work..... and being rostered between bases all over Europe to which you have to take yourself on your rostered days off.

On my days off I do not carry out any work at the behest of my employer so they are truly days free of duty for FTL purposes.

Can the same be said of RYR pilots ?

Tax Free Perk?
 

For UK based people, I would guess free travel to/from place of employment would be considered a perk by HMRC tax inspectors (other people pay travel costs to place of employment from tax paid salary, contractors might be different) - hence it should be declard and taxed by HMRC. Just a thought, not saying all FR people don't declare it!

Normally if you're going out of base you get scheduled for the repositioning and get paid per diem ,
If you go out of base to do a simulator check they should schedule you for the repositioning and pay a per diem there too for those days.

Flight time limitation schemes were introduced to limit excessive fatigue inherent in operating aeroplanes and time spent therein.
Thus, if an employer wishes to "passenger" an employee somewhere at it's behest then that time carries over towards duty time totals.
So, if one decides to "self position" ie. at your own convenience rather than the convenience of the employer - is this time now not contributing to any personal fatigue?
I freely admit that I know nothing of the practices within FR but any half good lawyer would have a field day with some of the ideas expressed on this thread.
It really is not that difficult! That is why many companies publish travel time criteria to their employees' main base. This allows them to show their "duty of care" to their employees. In other words - ignore at your peril!

This no longer affects me but I have seen too many colleagues worn down by excessive "commuting" not to mention been subjected to excessive "company behest" positioning by indifferent crew controllers myself.

Totally agree with Captplaystation and despegue!

Why the **** you complain for the only thing left SIMPLE in aviation?
**** off, we are PILOTS! Maybe the ONLY people who must be allowed to stay on the apron and in the aeroplanes at all time without questioning!

Too much burocreacy in this job. Seems that some of you LOVE a complicated life!

At least a commuter can sleep uninterrupted each night while he is away from home. How many non-commuting fathers and mothers can say that?


If commuting is done in your own time and out of your own free will, FTL's should be totally irrelevant. What's next, FTL's telling me I can't bring my children to school in the morning? FTL's telling me I can't go to a party at night? FTL's telling me that I cannot do my morning exercise run before a flight?

After years of commuting I can honestly say it was of no consequence to my performance at work. I can't say that of my family life..

Many many things contribute to personal fatigue. It's called having a life. You may choose to drive around the M25 every working day, I may choose to commute to base at my leisure and live in a hotel 5 minutes from the crew room. You may choose to raise pigs and may be found shoveling pig manure whilst I leisurely board one of my commuting flights listening to Bach on my noise cancelling headphones. You may choose to make a baby with your wife which will guarantee that you will not sleep properly for the coming years, whilst I may choose to leave all the family hassle at home for my five day stint at base.

As long as our performance in the flight deck does not suffer, who are we then to mind each others private lives?

Interesting thread. I got briefly arrested and had my pass suspended at a big UK airport for using the staff channel when positioning on company business as pax in casual clothes. Caused a load of hassle and our crews are specifically told that this is illegal to do in the UK now.

There is still the very grey area about the true status of the so-called contractor. It will be resolved; there is too much coming into the open about such abuse.
There will be those who believe they should have employee status, but can't be bothered to campaign for it. There are those who prefer to keep hush hush about it and milk it for what they can. (however, the more modern structure makes that less appealing). So most are caught in the 'self-employed' grey area.
Simple question; pilot on a company employee contract has to position from home base to another in the network before & after duty. Is that travel time rostered as duty or time off? If it is considered duty time, and/or even FTL time, then who organises the roster & travel time? I'm sure you will find that for direct employees it is yes to duty time and at company cost and organisation. This is basic FTL application and employees' T's & C's. The FTL issue is safety related; the combined duty time also has a limit.
So, if employees enjoy these considerations why not contractors? Are they some how immune from FTL & duty time considerations? I understand contractors will not benefit from paid costs; that's their bed to lie in, but for duty/rest issues they should not be any different from any pilot uncharge of a company a/c.
A contractor has a common/preferred base. They even have a registered office which, for self-employed, could be considered their base. Sometimes they need to operate a considerable time & distance from either. How can all that be some ghostly apparition?
And the employ will also enjoy being paid for their positioning time, as it is duty. The contractor really is on a triple whammy.
If you disagree then justify it.

PENKO: Yes, most poeple do have lives outside of work. However you seem to be argueing that a) driving from your real home (I am assuming here that you do not live at an airport) b)parking your car c) battling your way through airport queues for security d) waiting for boarding of your flight (hoping that it doesn't go "tech"/get cancelled e) board and endure your flight - that none of the foregoing have any influence on how tired you may get versus your locally based colleague who has the same family life but no commute to do?!
If your arguement were true then no FTL scheme would require the counting of positioning flights.

Meiklour, even dining on behest of the company is counted as duty time. Now I am sure you don't advocate skipping diner before an early flight!
The reason positioning flights count as duty is not because they are so specially tiring but because you are WORKING when you position.

A commuter is not working when he commutes. A commuter arranges his life voluntarily so that he chooses to fly to his work in his OWN SPARE TIME. So to come back to your question, a typical short haul commuter spends far less time traveling than most 'local' pilots who drive 30 to 45 minutes or up to an hour twice each day. And no, passing through security and boarding an aircraft is no big deal for a seasoned commuter. You just fast track through everything, you don't even think about it.

A quick calculation of a pilot who lives say, in AMS and works in LGW.
20 minute train ride to AMS, 90 minutes to reach the hotel in LGW, and then 5x ten minutes walk each day to reach the crew room, followed by another 110 minutes to come back home. That is a rough total of 270 minutes 'traveling', most of which is done reading a good book.

Compare that to a colleague who lives locally. 45 minutes to the car park by car, 20 minutes to reach the crew room by bus. Then again 65 minutes to go home after the duty. That is 130 minutes travel for just one day of work. Times five is 650 minutes every week traveling, most of which is behind the wheel of a car in busy traffic.


So are you sure that commuting is by definition more fatiguing?
I did not even mention that the commuting pilot gets 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every day for five days compared to his local colleague who also has to run a family on those five working days.

Spot on!

We ("foreign" airline) have been told we can't use the crew channel if we deadhead through UK.

PENKO: You are "muddying the waters" of this arguement by extending your case into the block of work the commuter does when he is away from home! That was not the original point of this thread! It was about people subjecting themselves, voluntarily to extra travelling fatigue by commuting before a duty.

At one stage I commuted from the south of the UK to Frankfurt for two years on an, albeit, long haul roster. No matter which LON airport was used (I preferred LCY by the way!) public transport to airport (allow 2 hours), one hour at least check-in time, flight itself ( 1:45 usually) + ensuing public transport to HOTAC. Very rarely was this less than a 5 hour journey. Tiring - you bet, especially when you have to travel to fit in with available flight/train timetables which I put to you probably does not affect your based colleague.

I have been both a local employee and a commuter, and I have to say that aside from the odd M25 disaster or airport closure through snow then one is no more stressful or time-consuming than the other.

@Captplaystation / despegue / I-AINC

You seem content to break the law. I am sure your employers regard you as an absolute gift. The airline distances itself from the employment reality it has created in the sure and certain knowledge that if an employee is caught abusing security all they have to do is to fire them and the problem (and any PR fallout) disappears at a stroke.

Whilst selfishly feathering your own little nests the professional status and reward so long fought-for by our predecessors becomes ever degraded. With every new pilot joining the industry that is prepared to cut corners and do something else for nothing the downward spiral continues.

Meiklour, if you associate commuting with fatigue then you must look at the whole working block. That's not muddying the waters as you say. You cannot single out commuting as 'fatiguing' by just looking at one negative aspect and disregarding all the other factors. Muddying the waters is arguing that FTL's come into play for something we do in our spare time!
Where do we stop otherwise?

Can I go for a run in the morning before a flight? Can I drive my children to school? Can I visit my parents who live two hours away from the airport before reporting for an afternoon flight? Can I manage my own company before leaving to the airport to work?




And yes, you had a horrible commute to Frankfurt, but that is absolutely not the norm. Leave it up to the individual to decide wether their commute is fatiguing. Personally I find running a family and working 'from home' far, far more fatiguing than commuting. Commuting was the saving grace when we had a newborn in the house.