Scheduling/Rostering at different companies?
 

Well, I would like to know from other ppruners how rostering work at their respective companies. I would like to have a basis, since I consider my companies roster to be crappy and am trying to have the system changed. I´ll start:


GOL LINHAS AEREAS (Brazilian low cost, no frills airline)

- No bidding system (Schedules are handed out twice a month. On the 13th and 30/31st of every month.)

- Guaranteed a minimum of 8 days a month (Usually not in blocks. Sometimes we get onlly one day off in between two flight programs. (Brazilian regulations)

- Maximum of 85 hours/month (Brazilian regulations)

- Maximum of 5 sectors/day, which can eventually be extended to 6. (Brazilian regs)

- Minimum of 12 hours off duty after a flight. (Brazilian regulation)

- Maximum of 11 hour duty hours per day (Brazilian reg)

- Maximum of 9.5 hours of flight time per day. (Brazilian Reg)


I personally think that the Brazilian Regulations are probably the best in terms of rest and working conditions. What pisses me off is that scheduling seems to be inneficient. I believe that our schedules could comprehend at least blocks of 3 or 4 days off. A bidding system like in the US would also be interesting.

I would appreciate any info or comments.

Thank You,

Mork

Hi Mork.

While it seems that rosters are given out very much at the last minute (assuming the roster on the 13th is for the period of the 14th onwards?), and single days off are not good, the rest of the conditions are actually quite good compared to the UK.

UK 100 hrs in 28 days.
More limiting than the UK. Not sure if there is a limit here, but 6 sectors is not unusual with some operators.
- Same as UK (although it can be reduced with Captains authority
Wow, if doing one sector we could do up to 14 hours, total limit reducing by 45 mins for each sector, and dependent upon time of day of going to work.
Again - wow. No limit to this in the UK, other than max flight duty period above.

expedite_climb

If your doing 1 sector you could be doing up to 16hours duty time, with pre & post flight duties.

Mork,

If the daily duty and flying hour limits are State Regs, how do the long-haul operators manage? Flying UK to US & Caribbean the shortest sector we've got is 9.5 hours.

First of all, thanks for the replies. The duty and flying hours that I mentioned before are for what we call in Brazil "simple crew". In other words one captain and one F/O. If we add a relief pilot (Which has to be a captain) then the flight/duty times can be extended. If we add another F/O and have two sets of crews, then we can extend these hours a bit more.

What I'm trying to get at is whether or not our scheduling is inefficient or if other companies follow regs that allow for a much better scheduling with consecutive days off.

Expedite Climb

You are correct as far as the schedules being handed out only 2 days in advance.

Thank you for now.

Mork

If you go to www.caa.co.uk and do a search for "CAP 371", you can peruse the legal FTL's for flying in the UK. Many UK airlines basically work to this on a day-to-day basis. Some have agreements with pilots that are more restrictive (eg more days off) - some agreements aren't more restrictive, though de facto the pilots don't work to the limits of CAP 371 (eg fixed 5 on/3 off patterns - about 11 days off in 28, rather than the 8 that CAP 371 says).

There are various software packages that produce rosters. Various limits can be put in.
Why not do some searching for these, or call a few other airlines and find out which packages they use?
Bidding can be good for the more senior and bad for the junior pilots.
Why not work out a decent roster for your regular flights yourself and suggest it to your rostering department?