Thomsonfly @ Coventry

[Freaky Styley]

Hi,
I'm interested in hearing from people working for Thomson out of Coventry.
Do you get back to base most nights?
Is there a lot of taxiing around?
Is there a good atmosphere with the crew operating there.
What is the airport like to operate out of.
Cheers

[Rainboe]

Freaky- it's always worth saying who or what you are and why you're asking so people can know what basis or level to set their answer. I'm incredibly intrigued by <Is there a lot of taxiing around?>.......is this some career decisionmaking criterion? Is it desperately important to get back to base every night? If so maybe another career (like banking) beckons?

[Fly-by-night]

Originally Posted by Freaky Styley

Hi,
I'm interested in hearing from people working for Thomson out of Coventry.
Do you get back to base most nights?
Is there a lot of taxiing around?
Is there a good atmosphere with the crew operating there.
What is the airport like to operate out of.
Cheers

In a nutshell:

A) No night stops out of CVT. New Carman rostering may change this however.
B) Small airport with a small apron, so hardly any taxiing!
C) Most of the time
D) Small & friendly

[jayteeto]

Why should you consider another career?? After 25 years in the RAF, spending up to 9 months of the year away, one of my main criterion for a job was not going away!! LoCos generally offer that luxury. I haven't applied for any jobs that include long-haul, horses for courses.

[SeamusCVT]

It would probably be a wise idea to hear the outcome of the public inquiry into the proposed 2 million terminal though, before making any major career changes regarding being based at Coventry.

[Pilot Pete]

B) Small airport with a small apron, so hardly any taxiing!

I thought the same, but I guess he means in a Hallmark taxi up and down the motorways!!

As already pointed out, the wild and wacky world of Carmen is about to enroll all Thomsonfly pilots into its Roster Lottery. Supposedly you can preferentially bid for the type of flying you prefer and influence your roster. However, if everyone bids for day-time flying I guess we'll all end up sharing out the night flights like we do now So under Carmen, you will be 'optimised' which means you do 'pairings' of work (several days work chunked together, starting at home base and ending at home base, with whatever in between). It's the 'whatever' that you should be able to influence, so if you bid for flying out of home base, then you should get more of that and less nightstops. If you fancy being continually turned down by the cabin crew then you can bid for lots of nightstops!

The airport is a bit of a mess at the moment. The staff car park seems to change weekly with either the quagmire or a bus ride (interim whilst they build/ tarmac car park areas), crewroom is close to the 'terminal' and not too far to the aircraft. Handling is not the best but survivable, ramp is small and ok for the number of aircraft currently operating, runway is short and airspace is a nightmare.

Everyone in Thomsonfly is welcoming to new crew. I'm not based there but I keep hearing about nights out that I haven't been to.

PP