Seniority System

cuterob

I cant get my head around this sometimes.. it is not unusual for new captains to be put on a type where most of the first officers have in some cases thousands of more hours flying the plane.. for example the AA pilot who does the cockpit chronicles blog.. he flew the md-80 for a bit years ago but more recently flew as co-pilot on the 757/767 for years.. a position came up to be captain on the md80 and he took it.. I was talking to him online and he said he most of the time he was flying with first officers who had hundreds and most who had thousands of more hours flying that type.. I know all about the seniority system in america and how it works but could that not lead to problems in the cockpit? especially when it comes to cocky individuals? it just seems wrong that the commander of the flight might have to be told by the co-pilot why the plane is reacting in a certain way etc

Also when AA get the massive order of airbus planes there is gonna be a lot of crews who will not have many hours between them flying the type.. for e.g you could have a captain of md80 who flew boeing all his life moving into the left seat of the airbus and the right seat could be occupied by a guy who flew co-pilot on the 767 and also never flew anything but boeing.
I know there is conversion training etc and i'm sure it will all be very extensive but I don't think I would feel very safe knowing that the two guys up front have little to none airbus experience with that kind of operating system and maybe have less than 100hours on type experience between them.

I'm not sure how this works in europe.. i'm just taking america as an example

Shamrock231

Have to start somewhere, whenever a new type is introduced to an airline there's probably not going to be any experienced pilots on it. Just look at Aer Lingus when the A330 was introduced back in 1994, none of their Captains or FO's had any experience on it but they managed to operate it safely and have now been flying it 18 years without a single accident (bar the Boston incident, but not really a type related issue).

cuterob

Shamrock231 wrote: »

Have to start somewhere, whenever a new type is introduced to an airline there's probably not going to be any experienced pilots on it. Just look at Aer Lingus when the A330 was introduced back in 1994, none of their Captains or FO's had any experience on it but they managed to operate it safely and have now been flying it 18 years without a single accident (bar the Boston incident, but not really a type related issue).

well that was a lot smaller of a scale .. not ordering 150+ new types.. but you are right I suppose has to start somewhere.. I just find it all very odd and unnerving.

I do know an ex EI skipper who flew the 747 for them when the airbus were introduced.. he hated the 330 when it came as it happens.. I think that was down to flying all boeing(737/767/747) and switching to a more automated system.. never liked the sidestick either lol

roundymac

Shamrock231 wrote: »

Have to start somewhere, whenever a new type is introduced to an airline there's probably not going to be any experienced pilots on it. Just look at Aer Lingus when the A330 was introduced back in 1994, none of their Captains or FO's had any experience on it but they managed to operate it safely and have now been flying it 18 years without a single accident (bar the Boston incident, but not really a type related issue).

Forgive me if this has been discussed some where else but what was the Boston incident?

Shamrock231

roundymac wrote: »

Forgive me if this has been discussed some where else but what was the Boston incident?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Logan_Airport_runway_incursion

A320

Shamrock231 wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Logan_Airport_runway_incursion

Eh have you read this??? where is EI to blame here????

Shamrock231

A320 wrote: »

Eh have you read this??? where is EI to blame here????

I never said they were to blame, only that that was an incident in which their A330 was involved in. If you read my post you'll see I said it wasn't a type related incident.

A320

ya an incident nothing else and nothing to do with their type of aircraft

Shamrock231

A320 wrote: »

ya an incident nothing else and nothing to do with their type of aircraft

Exactly, so my point stands then.

smurfjed

Seniority is great if you have a good position, otherwise it sucks ::) You have to remember that all pilots within an airline are trained to the same standard, therefore in theory they are all equal, so from the airlines point of view, the seniority system becomes a screening tool for upgrades to other fleets or captaincy? From the crews point of view, it also allows them to bid for flights, days off and vacation.

As for new aircraft, what we generally end up doing is selecting up to 20 Captains for training on the new aircraft, they will be trained in the sim, the aircraft manufacturer will then supply "their" pilots to instruct the airline pilots during the line training for X number of sectors, the airline guys then become the initial instructors and start to teach other crew, the pyramid keeps growing until you get the required numbers to crew the fleet. Does this mean that you will end up with both crew members having less than 100 hours each, yes, in the beginning it can happen, but once we get past the initial period, this is then banned. But at least in our case, these pilots are qualified line pilots, we didn't allow cadets to fly the A320 during the first 2 years of operations.

Our next new aircraft will be the B748F in about 2 months The above process will be followed.

smurfjed

smurfjed

(bar the Boston incident, but not really a type related issue).

How is this even classed as an incident?

smurfjed

Shamrock231

smurfjed wrote: »

How is this even classed as an incident?

smurfjed

Well, I think the categories are only incident, accident and crash. And I think someone has to be injured for something to be classed as an accident, so they had to keep it as an incident despite it's seriousness... All runway incursions are classed as incidents AFAIK.

A320

Shamrock231 wrote: »

Exactly, so my point stands then.

What???

But to operate the aircraft all had to have experience and training,they didn't just hop in and take it off!!

Shamrock231

A320 wrote: »

What???

But to operate the aircraft all had to have experience and training,they didn't just hop in and take it off!!

What???

My point was that when they started to operate the A330 they didn't have any experience whatsoever on it, and that 18 years later they've never had an accident.

smurfjed

So you believe that ALL airlines are supposed to have incidents/accidents when they get new aircraft?

smurfjed

smurfjed

According to our company policy, that wouldn't be considered an incident, but under the CAA system it would be considered a "serious incident".

Did you forget about the aileron bracket on the EI A330? Would you consider that an incident as well?

smurfjed

Shamrock231

smurfjed wrote: »

So you believe that ALL airlines are supposed to have incidents/accidents when they get new aircraft?

smurfjed

No, that's not what I said at all. New airlines get new types all the time and there's rarely an accident, then I used Aer Lingus as an example of an Airline that introduced a new type and has operated it safely ever since.

smurfjed wrote: »

A
ccording to our company policy, that wouldn't be considered an incident, but under the CAA system it would be considered a "serious incident".

Did you forget about the aileron bracket on the EI A330? Would you consider that an incident as well?

smurfjed

Forgot about that, that'd count as an incident as well I suppose.

Flier

smurfjed wrote: »

How is this even classed as an incident?

smurfjed

This was a very serious incident! Anything that affects or could affect the safety of aviation comes under the banner of 'incident'. To be an accident, you have to have a fatality, injury or damage to an aircraft. So stuff like a TCAS RA, even if you were nowhere near collision, needs to be reported as an incident. Any runway incursion, even if there was no other aircraft involved, is an incident and needs to be reported. Neither of the flight crews were to blame in anyway, they were operating under their clearances, and the system in KBOS at the time ment that as they were working different frequencies, there was not even the fallback of 'situational awareness' where they might have picked up that another aircraft had received a conflicting clearance. Only for the quick thinking of both crews and pure luck, (in that the American opted to delay rotation, and the EI to rotate early), this event would have resulted in huge loss of life - the KLM accident in Teneriffe comes to mind - I believe that still holds the dubious honour of being the worst aviation accident in history.

Flier

Smurfjed, ICAO define what qualifies as an accident or an incident, not individual companies. I'm not going to read through the entire document (Annex 13) but I assume if your company operates out of a state that has signed up to ICAO, then that does qualify as an incident. Maybe you might check up with your Air Safety dept to see what you should be reporting.

A320

smurfjed wrote: »

So you believe that ALL airlines are supposed to have incidents/accidents when they get new aircraft?

smurfjed

That what it sounds like

Flier

smurfjed wrote: »

Did you forget about the aileron bracket on the EI A330? Would you consider that an incident as well?

smurfjed

That too was an incident - the IAA reported on it as a 'serious incident'




Back to the original point about Captains operating on types where their F/O may have more hours.
Sure this happens, probably for lots of captains in lots of airlines who operate more than one type. Promotion to Captain will often go hand in hand with a change in fleet, because the pilot will probably have been operating on a more 'popular' type as a senior F/O, but then goes to the bottom of the pile of Captains. But I think the important point about captains is that they are captains because of their skills in areas other than handling planes. Those skills they take with them across fleets, and are relevant no matter what type they are on or for how long they have been on it. There are probably loads of captains out there who fly with F/O's who may be better handlers than them, but who don't have the skill or experience to manage a situation where the proverbial sh1t is hitting the fan. Lots of good 'handlers' don't pass command checks because of deficiencies in their management and decision making skills. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone in my company who failed command checks because of poor handling skills. People generally don't pass their initial line training / checking if their handling isn't up to a good standard.
Also once the new captain is type rated and line checked, there really shouldn't be any occasion when the F/O has to explain to him the technical limits of the aircraft - that's why there's a TR and training process.

smurfjed

Flier, thanks for that, since my post I did research the definitions and mour policy manual is incorrect, so much for IOSA certification There is a catch all saying "anything else the captain decides is an incident" but that really isn't specific enough.

Btw, are you from a certain airfield in Wexford?

Smurfjed

Flier

Negative! No time for GA these days unfortunately!