Flybe Rosters
 

Ok, you Flybe guys 'n' gals, how many days per month do you work, how is standby dealt with and how many nightstops per month on average?

We average about 8 days off a month, sometimes 9. It's not undusual to do 6days on the trot with 2 off. Sometimes you will get a single day off only. Finish on lates (2200-2230) and start on earlies (check in 0600). Although its not unusual for the lates to run late as it were. You find in the summer that you often don't make it to the 6th day anyway as you run out of hours after 5 days. The shift is anything from 6.5hrs to 11.5 hours although again this varies with discretion etc and roster changes. You have between 4 and 6 sectors a day.

Not sure what you mean about how standbys are handled. Basically its unusual not to be called. Between May last year and the end of sept i did no standbys as i was called everytime on the dot if it wasn't changed before the day anyway. You are more likely to do some standbys in winter.

The number of nightstops you do depend on fleet and base really. Generally the dash captains get absolutely hammered and spend alot of time away from home. At some bases they are only making it home for days off. This does change periodically though. Its difficult to give you a definitive answer as alot of these issues depend on base and fleet. At some bases you would do alot of standbys and at others none! At some of the bases roster changes are unusual and at others you're lucky if you do anything on your roster. Again some of the guys nightstop all the time and others don't nightstop as much if at all. Hope this helps!

Rotating Beacon's post is a fair reflection of my experience. To add my tuppence worth, I also found that you're often called right at the end of a home standby thus bu&&ering up your entire day. Hang around local area then with minutes to go, you're called in for some duty or other.

Thanks RB.

I take it that you work 20-22 days per month then. Is that right? Is there a predictable pattern ( eg 6 on 3 off or 5 and 2 etc.) or is it random?

What I meant by handling standby is do you do it in a block of days or is it just the odd random day here and there?

Could you say how many nightstops per month a thrashed dash captain does and which bases tend to do the most night-stops?

Hi wingswinger

Yes it is normal to work 20-22 days a month. Last summer the co. were doing 5/2 or 6/3. The 6/3 was a result of a trial giving 8 DOIL days back to the company and using those days during the roster to make sure that people doing 6 days got 3 off at the end. The system has reverted to normal again, so you don't necessarily get 3 days off after 6 on.

You generally get 5/2 or 6/2, however its not unusual to do 8 or 9 days with 1 off in the middle to keep the roster legal. The roster isn't too bad for the most part, however once crewing get hold of it, its an entirely different story. In terms of standby it's mostly single random days (1 a week) but often you might only get 2 maybe 3 in a roster. You may get 2 together. Its unusual to get more. As Ham Phisted has said being called off an early standby is quite common, to do lates etc. This is a pain if you are on a 0600 stby on your first day back as they call you 5 mins before the end to do lates which wipes out the next 2 or 3 days of earlies and the whole week goes to c**p!

This was a daily/weekly occurance last summer. Everytime i checked in and out for the day i had roster changes. Eventually you give up printing the roster for environmental reasons!

The dash guys would do 1 maybe 2 days in a week and nightstop the rest. You normally get sent to edinburgh, glasgow or belfast. However, as i said before some of the guys are away for the whole week. The bases with the most nightstopping captains are bhx and jsy, although i do stand to be corrected! Things should improve at bhx as i think there are more dashes for the summer. Not sure what is going on in jsy though. Bhx is probably the most turbulent base in terms of roster changing and messing around. The other bases are more stable but you pretty much do max hours wherever you are based!! You generally get "thrashed" wherever you are on either fleet, the only difference is whether you get to go home at the end of the day!!

Not really what you want out of the job is it? Would be better if the money was really decent. Has anybody ever really studied the hidden costs of crew turnover because of the Pay/lifestyle model used by FlyBe. No!

Thanks once again, RB.

Now, what about leave? How many days annual leave are there, is it equally split between summer and winter and are there any other periods of time off to compensate for working weekends and public holidays?

Is leave allocated, negotiated or bid for?

Hi ww!

As far as leave goes at the moment i believe it is 20 days a year. You get an additional day for each year of service. I think this is up to a max of 5 days. You get an additional 8 days in lieu of public holidays etc.

You bid for leave at the beginning of each leave period and the forms are sent automatically, you are also advised of your leave allowance. Bids for leave are accepted in order of seniority. You can bid for 1 block of 16 days and a block of 9 days during summer and the rest is taken in the winter period. You can put a second preference for your leave in case the first is unsuccessful to give them more to work on. If you have any special requests i.e time off for wedding and honeymoon etc they will accomodate this regardless of seniority ( or they have so far!!). To be fair if you have any requests or problems rostering are pretty good in trying to help you out. The only problem is that they are fairly restricted in what they can do. If it falls outside their remit they will refer you to your relevant fleet manager, who will authorise anything out of the ordinary i.e loads of leave in one go.

For every 5 days leave you get 4 wrap around days ie.total of 9 days.

If you don't bid for any leave it will be allocated to you. If you want to move days etc they will normally do this for you as long as the days are available. You don't get anything for working weekends. If you just want a couple of days off for a wedding/ event you can request days off in blocks of up to 3. These aren't guaranteed and you won't know if you have them till the roster is issued.

Hope this helps!

Yes, that helped, RB. Thanks very much for your informative posting.

The only other enquiry I have is do you think people are, on the whole, happy to be working at Flybe, is it fun and enjoyable, or is there a lot of whingeing and moaning? Forget the money for a moment, just tell me about the atmosphere and relationships between different groups of staff.

It would help also if someone other than RB felt like putting in his/her ha'p'orth here.

pretty good bunch at BHD. We all moan at times but in general most who are there are happy. Its a great base!

So far things generally seem to be pretty good in terms of atmosphere and crew relations. Most of the (limited) whingeing that goes on centres on rosters, as you may have guessed, but in fairness it tends to be a vocal minority. Most of the others just get on with the job at hand.

BHD and SOU both have a really good vibe about them, crews are friendly and the atmosphere relaxed. You could certainly do a whole lot worse.

Thanks very much MC, very helpful.