who has good roster patterns?
 

I heard about Wizzair's choice of roster - 6/4 or 6/1/6/7. Which airlines (worldwide) have awesome rosters like these? From where I'm sitting it seems nice to have a regular block of time off, which you know about well in advance and can plan to do things with!

But which other airlines/operators offer similar schemes?

Cheers :ok:

Ryanair is 5/4 mostly. Some bases are 5/3 and floating pilots are 5/5 (although that is changing as I understand it to 7/3 to reflect travel days).

Vietnam Airlines is 6 week on / 2 week off standard roster, and they have options for 5+3 or 4+4 also.

Quite a few private operators in the mid east do month on / month off rosters. NAS in Saudi does something like that but its 35 days on / 30 off I believe.

Union signed Air Atlanta pilots have 3w on/ 3w off. That sounds sweet to me.

thanks for the replies :)

With Vietnam and Air Atlata - do you work solid for the 6 or 3 weeks on? How do you handle not having a day off for over a month!? I've tried it once and it wasn't pretty...

Keep em coming :ok:

Hi there,

in easyJet we have 5 earlies, 3 off, 5 lates, 4 off.

A lot of the Asian 6 w on 3 off type of contracts give you 2 days off per week during your on block.

Most corporate operators in Europe are doing 2 w on / 2 off, 3 on / 3 off or 7 days on / 7 off.

Vietnam, they still have to comply with JAA flight duty time limitations, so you still get minimum 8 days off a month. The 2 weeks off every 6 weeks, is additional to that.

Ther is a company in Canada with one 767 cargo plane(among other aircraft) where it is all daytime flying domestically and they only fly about 7 days a month and make almost 200K per year. But you likely won't get on with them.

Talking about roster, any info if it's possible at Emirates to choose either to fly more ultra long range e.g. MEL, LAX etc or to fly short/medium range staying mostly e.g. in the middle east and Europe area?

Thanx in advance

Thanks for all the replies - really interesting to see how different companies can be!

What about the UK majors - say BA or Virgin Atlantic?

John - I've been working 6/1 for the last four years so the chance of getting a 2 day weekend seems pretty nice... and the prospect of a full week off after working 2 weeks is most definately awesome! I'm flying in Africa though so no JAA regulations to abide by :\

TCX SH is a random roster with mixtures of very early going into night flights, sby, min 10 days off per month in summer and 13 days off in winter. Can be good or bad depending largely on luck and tactical use of the computerised leave system to achieve the odd weekend off. Mostly medium haul (12hr duty days+/-) these days, so even in summer rarely flying more than 12 days a month. T&C's currently under attack by management due to TC's poor finances.

EAT ... 7on/7off .... although only night flying , it's the best deal I've seen so far.
Not for new joiners anymore ...:{

5/3/5/?/6/x/7/1?
 

Roster patterns can change, what you should really be looking for IMO is a fundamentally sound company with a track record of treating it's staff well.

Unfortunately this would rule out most of the few companies that are still hiring today. :ouch:

BA has a system based on seniority. Once you achieve a little of it, you can effectively write your own roster, choosing your own days off. The system is totally transparent. Once published, your roster virtually never changes. A shorthaul pilot would average about 13-14 days off per month, and 56 days leave per year. A longhaul pilot would probably spend more days at home.

Some Twin Otter operators have 5 week on/off, or 6 week on/off rosters. Rotating out of Algeria, Angola, Chad....

EAT new joiners is also quite good. Not quite 7/7 sadly, but min 10 off per month and 33 per quarter. Works out more or less 5/4/5/3 with odd days here or there. Patterns usually end just after midnight which gives almost an extra day prior to an off block. Great if you live in Leipzig. Not too bad if you commute within Europe.

KT