Pilot travel to sims at airlines like TOM
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Pilot travel to sims at airlines like TOM
Just out of interest, could someone tell me how pilots for large airlines with numerous, disparate bases around the country get to their simulator training? For example, would a 757 pilot for TOM based at BHX have to go to their simulator check all the way down in Luton or London? If so, do the company have to provide taxis or do they give some sort of travel allowance for having to travel so far from base for training?
Cheers folks
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You'll not be surprised that airlines chose the cheapest method available. Taxis and busses are often too expensive so airlines position their crews by air (at interline, service travel rates), rail, hire car and such like. But as a typical session is three to four hours long with a two hour brief and hour debrief we are talking about a whole day. That will often mean a crew will have to be put up in a hotel the night before. Unless of course you work for some LoCo's when you have you get yourself the sim, rested, on time and if you had better be there or...
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yes sim training for 757/767 say TOM (ie BRS based) will be done say at LGW and crew will have option to take take own transport and get reimbursed plus HOTAC or taxi up/back from base
SIM training is rostered same as duty days
SIM training is rostered same as duty days
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An airline would have a contract with a chauffeur hire company to provide crew transport around the country. In the 2000's EasyJet, Britannia/Thomson and Monarch used a company called Hallmark who had vehicles ranging from luxury coaches to Mercedes E classes, depending on the numbers being moved. Although crews referred to them as taxis, they carried no markings (except the coaches) and had derogation not to display their private hire plates. I spent several happy years driving for this company and some of the journeys were bewildering to the uninitiated. There was the trip from Stansted to Newcastle carrying a single member of cabin crew who was required to make up the numbers on a Newcastle to Stansted flight! I had to wait up there until she returned and then drive her back to Stansted. Then there was the EasyJet First Officer I was taking from Stansted to Liverpool. Around the Stoke area I got a call telling me that EasyJet operations had been on and they now wanted him at Gatwick. So we turned round and headed south. I once picked up a Britannia crew (as it then was) at Gatwick and took them to East Midlands to do about half an hours door training and then drove them back.
A particularly memorable trip was when I went from base at Stansted to Norwich to pick up a Thomson cabin crew member and drive her to Doncaster. It been raining heavily and the incoming captain decided that the runway was too wet to land on and diverted to....Stansted! I called my control they told me that the pax would be offloaded at Stansted and put on coaches and the aircraft would then return to Norwich so I should wait for my passenger.
Eventually, the company was left with just EasyJet and most of the time we were trundling from Stansted to Burgess Hill sim.
A particularly memorable trip was when I went from base at Stansted to Norwich to pick up a Thomson cabin crew member and drive her to Doncaster. It been raining heavily and the incoming captain decided that the runway was too wet to land on and diverted to....Stansted! I called my control they told me that the pax would be offloaded at Stansted and put on coaches and the aircraft would then return to Norwich so I should wait for my passenger.
Eventually, the company was left with just EasyJet and most of the time we were trundling from Stansted to Burgess Hill sim.
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I was with Hallmark from late 2004 to it's closure in mid 2012, so maybe our paths crossed. I have a very poor memory for names, although at the time some were more familiar than others. The only one I remember is Louisa Knapp, her of the long blonde hair, probably because she once described me a gentleman!
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I was with Hallmark from late 2004 to it's closure in mid 2012, so maybe our paths crossed. I have a very poor memory for names, although at the time some were more familiar than others. The only one I remember is Louisa Knapp, her of the long blonde hair, probably because she once described me a gentleman!
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Well, the Louisa Knapp I was referring to was a Thomson 737-800 first officer around the period 2005-2010.
I drive a PH vehicle in Southampton, the company I operate with has a contract with Flybe to move their crews around. We get some fairly diverse jobs, best I've had was a captain down to Newquay to operate a flight and a captain who had run out of hours back to Manchester.
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My SIM was in Stockholm and Stavanger before that so I had to fly from Brisbane to Dubai then on to Stockholm for 3 days -4 days before flying home !! Now it's in Brunei so it's down to Melbourne before catching Royal Brunei direct to Bander Seri Bagawan then onto work in WA. A right royal pain in the ar$e
