FO to CA

[highflying]

When a First Officer moves up in your airline and your company has different types of planes, how does this happen. Does the FO move up from say the 737 to the 757 to the 777 as a FO or does he go FO on a 737 to a CA on a 737 and then moves back to a FO for a 757. I have always wondered how that works. Sorry if it is a stupid question.

 

[GuppyPuppy]

Not a stupid question at all.

At most companies your seat position and aircraft flown are based on personal preference and seniority.

For example, I am currently flying the B737 as a First Officer. I have approximately 22 years left at the company before I am forced to retire. Providing the company keeps the B737 around for another 22 years I could decide that I never wanted to leave the right seat of the B737 for the rest of my career. I could also stay right seat on the B737 for the next 20 years and then decide I wanted to go to the left seat of the B777. I would get the left seat of the B777 if my seniority could hold it (meaning there was a spot open on that seat/aircraft and nobody senior to me wanted it).

This works the same for domicile preferences. For example, at my company we have folks in SEA who are quite senior compared with the rest of the domiciles. SFO seems to be a junior domicile. So, we have pilots in SEA whose seniority could only hold a B737 Captain in SEA, however if they chose to be based in SFO that same pilot could hold a B777 Captain. They choose not to take the B777 Captain bid in SFO because they probably live near Seattle and don't want to commute to work.

A computer program takes inputs from each pilot as to what their preferences are in order. For example, a pilot may have as his/her first choice a B747 Captain in SFO. Choice #2 might be a B777 Captain in SFO. Choice 3 might be a B747 Captain in LAX, etc... When a spot opens up for a particular seat/aircraft/domicile the computer will look at the #1 pilot on the company seniority list to see if he/she wants the open spot. If not, the computer will look to the number 2 pilot on the company seniority list to see if the pilot wants that spot. The computer will search in order of seniority until the spot is filled.

The filling of a spot in a multi-fleet airline creates many more vacancies. If a B777 Captain position is filled by a current B767 Captain, then a B767 Captain vacancy exists, which could be filled by an A320 Captain, which would leave a vacancy in the left seat of the A320, which may be filled by a B737 Captain, which leaves a vacancy in the left seat of the B737, which could be filled by any First Officer or maybe even a pilot who was flying left seat in the A320 and hated it and wanted to go back to the B737.....apologies for run-on sentence!

How's that for simplistic complexity??!?!?!?

Pay is usually higher for any Captain seat over any First Officer seat. However, at my company a B747 First Officer is paid more than a B737 Captain. Generally, the higher paid positions go to the most senior pilots at the company. Some have found that they don't want the long-haul international flying and choose to stay on the smaller aircraft, even at the lower payscale.

That is basically how it works. I hope I haven't confused you any more than you already were!

Happy Landings!

Cheers!

GP