Pilot Schedules For Low-Cost Carriers

[paulgray]

I was wondering if there was any difference in the pilot schedules between a big-name major airline like United or Delta, which are both airlines with multiple hubs, and low-cost carriers such as AirTran or Frontier. Basically what I'm asking is, since Frontier has Denver as its only hub, and every flight is from either Denver to City X or City X to Denver, does this mean that Frontier pilots would finish their trips for the day in Denver or would they have many layovers in City X like all the multiple-hub major airline pilots do?

Thanks for any info.

 

[jarhead]

I can't speak directly from first hand knowlege of Frontier out of Denver, I can make a pretty good guess, based on common sence.

If an airline is to be competitive in areas other that just the price of a ticket, they must be competitive in their service as well. If Frontier, (or any carrier) has a presence in cities they serve, they must be able to offer flights from cities X, Y, or Z, in the early morning hours, when so many of the flights depart. To do that, the flight crew would end their day late, in city 'X', and depart in the early a.m. the next morning, with the pax that required early departure (most).

Comair is in the same situation you describe. They have one 'hub' in CVG. Until recently, all flights were back and forth from CVG, to X, Y, and Z. (More recently, Comair has initiated flights between city pairs that do not involve going in and out of CVG)

I live near MSP, and travel to CVG frequently as a non-rev to visit may son, who lives in CVG. I often will depart at 5:30 a.m. on a Comair flight. That airplane, has been on the ramp all night, having terminated its day of flying late the previous evening. The crew has a very early wake up call, as my son has piloted that flight on a CD line in the past, and he often told me that he would get to bed around midnight, and then have to rise at about 3:00 a,m,, to shower, eat, and get to the airport in time. Made for a sleepy morning.

 

[flx757]

AirTran, like most other airlines, has a wide variety of schedules. Even though ATL is the only pilot base, and is the principal hub, we have various other "focus cities", so it is possible to have a multiple day trip that only sees ATL at the beginning and end of the trip. Even if you pass through ATL several time during your trip pairing, you are still doing the layovers in other cities.

We do however, have day trips which begin and end in ATL, and the lines which contain these trips have a sequence of 3 or 4 of these days back to back.

 

[IAHERJ]

I can only speak for Airtran and my previous airline, Continental Express. Just because the airplane might arrive late in the evening then depart early the next morning in a certain city, the crew doesn't always stay with that airplane. For instance, the other night, I was on day 1 of a 4 day trip. We arrived in Boston late in the evening. We were the afternoon flight out to Baltimore the next day therefore when we got to the airport, we took out a plane that was just arriving from Atlanta. We had about 13 hours on the ground in Boston which is enough time for dinner and a beer along with some excercise the next morning before having to catch a 1200 hotel van to the airport. It is certainly not the longest layover we have at Airtran, but not the shortest either. Some schedules (around 14 for August) are completely built as "standup" lines also known as "naps","highspeeds" etc. You basically take the late flight from Atlanta to a city and remain on duty all night and bring in the very first flight back to Atlanta then receiving the entire day off. You will do this 3-4 times in a row then receive 4 days off. Some people love these schedules in that they can be at home all day and get things done before having to go to work around 9-10 P.M
At Continental Express we would have 24-36 hour layovers in Canada and Mexico which were almost too long if you were doing the same trip all month. But they allowed you some peaceful non cell phone interrupted afternoons by the pool or the beach.

Long story short, just because an airline is considered a low cost airline, doesn't mean that the pilots and flight attendants go to bed late and wake up in the morning early. Staging crews allows the crews to vary their layover times and still keep the monthly flying hours productive thus covering lots of trips and overnights for the company. Our monthly block hours at Airtran are probably a lot higher than those of the big 6 as we fly more hours in a month than those airlines, however our layover times are probably very similer to the big 6's domestic scheduled crews.

IAHERJ
ATL 717 FO

 

[flx757]

Some schedules (around 14 for August) are completely built as "standup" lines also known as "naps","highspeeds" etc. You basically take the late flight from Atlanta to a city and remain on duty all night and bring in the very first flight back to Atlanta then receiving the entire day off. You will do this 3-4 times in a row then receive 4 days off.

A clarification of AirTran's CDO ("stand-up") schedule. Our contract limits the number of CDOs you can do in a row to 3, then it also requires a minumim of 3 days off after any CDO or group of CDOs.

 

[IAHERJ]

Thanks flx757,

I haven't had a CDO line yet. I will say that I'm glad we limit the # to 3 in a row. This is the first company I've worked for with CDO lines and I'm thinking about trying one in a few months.

IAHERJ