Longest round trip one crew can do from Dublin in a day?

coylemj

Looking at flights to Catania or the Canaries, assuming it runs on schedule and does the planned turnaround, can EI or FR do the round trip with one flight crew? Are they the longest trips that one flight crew can do from Dublin in a day?

NH2013

Longest duty limit legally allowed is 13 hours in a day, or 15 hours with a planned extended duty, so assuming 45 mins for check-in and flight planning, and 45 mins for a turnaround down route, that leaves 13:30 for flying, so half that would be 6:45hr each way.

Though operationally you'd want a bit of fat on that, particularly with planned extended duties, so probably somewhere 6 hours flying time away for a round trip in a day. If you add in extra flights the max duty limit reduces by 30 mins for each flight from the 3rd on.

Max duty is also reduced further if the flight duty period encroaches on a period of night time known as the WOCL, which is basically when the body should be asleep, not 100% sure but think it's about between 23:00 and 07:00.

Stovepipe

Some charters are particularly long, such as the Christmas run up to Rovaniemi in Finland for the Santa trips. Charters that go to the Near East would be the same; eight or nine hours in the air...The Canadian companies that fly into Dublin with 737s turn around and go home after about 90 minutes on the ground, so that's Halifax-Dub-Halifax in one day......if it wasn't for duty time rules, companies would take the piss!

NH2013

Stovepipe wrote: »

Some charters are particularly long, such as the Christmas run up to Rovaniemi in Finland for the Santa trips. Charters that go to the Near East would be the same; eight or nine hours in the air...The Canadian companies that fly into Dublin with 737s turn around and go home after about 90 minutes on the ground, so that's Halifax-Dub-Halifax in one day......if it wasn't for duty time rules, companies would take the piss!

You could also very easily argue even with current duty limits they take the piss, treating limits designed to be used in the odd case or once in a blue moon as a weekly or daily target, all in the name of more profits, knowing crews will go beyond the limits into discretion to get home if it doesn't go as smoothly as planned, an accident waiting to happen, if not already the cause of a few.

Lapmo_Dancer

coylemj wrote: »

Looking at flights to Catania or the Canaries, assuming it runs on schedule and does the planned turnaround, can EI or FR do the round trip with one flight crew? Are they the longest trips that one flight crew can do from Dublin in a day?

Izmir and Athens are further

Noxegon

Ryanair does a Paphos round trip, and Cobalt does Larnaca. I’d say those are the longest out of Dublin.

0lddog

TOM used to do DUB - SSH - DUB in a day with ( I believe ) one crew ( generally in a 738 )

smurfjed

@NH2013, is there a flight time limit apart from the duty time? What about augmented or double crews, does anyone use them on smaller aircraft?

In the private world, the longest that I have done is Geneva -Shannon -New York -Paris, so crossed the Atlantic twice in one day, albeit with a double crew.

Stovepipe

NH2013 wrote: »

You could also very easily argue even with current duty limits they take the piss, treating limits designed to be used in the odd case or once in a blue moon as a weekly or daily target, all in the name of more profits, knowing crews will go beyond the limits into discretion to get home if it doesn't go as smoothly as planned, an accident waiting to happen, if not already the cause of a few.

You are dead right. The CAA in the UK had to take the wooden spoon to a few airlines that constantly rostered crews into "discretion", as it was an unwritten practise, until someone blew the whistle and the CAA started hitting back.

tayto lover

Not exactly on topic but does anyone know how often planes are checked mechanically to make sure they're safe. I'm very scared of flying.

ED E

tayto lover wrote: »

Not exactly on topic but does anyone know how often planes are checked mechanically to make sure they're safe. I'm very scared of flying.

Let me goog....

A check
This is performed approximately every 400-600 flight hours or 200–300 cycles (takeoff and landing is considered an aircraft "cycle"), depending on aircraft type.[4] It needs about 50-70 man-hours and is usually on the ground in a hangar for a minimum of 10 hours. The actual occurrence of this check varies by aircraft type, the cycle count, or the number of hours flown since the last check. The occurrence can be delayed by the airline if certain predetermined conditions are met.

B check
This is performed approximately every 6-8 months.
......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks

smurfjed

@tayto lover, before every flight, the WIKI link given by ED E is like bringing your car in for a service check at specific milage or time, but we do whats called a WALK AROUND before every series of flights with a shorter walk around before every flight, this is after the aircraft were checked by highly competent ground engineers. All of this is done under the oversight of the local regulatory authorities and in some cases the authorities of the countries that you operate to. Stick with airlines that you know and you wont have any need to fear maintenance issues.

The Nutty M

I often wondered about duty times too when a crew is rostered to do a trip but it all goes tits up before they are ready to take off back to destination. Ie STN - PDL - STN. The crew calculate in PDL that by the time they make it to STN on the return trip that they will be out of time.
Is there some rule preventing them from using their remaining duty time to fly to LIS or someplace closer? Rather than sitting it out and flying out after their rest period. STN PDL just being an example route.

smurfjed

This is where discretion comes into play, the crew may at their discretion continue for another 2 hours for delays or reasons outside their control. However if as mentioned above the airline scheduled the flight into discretion and it got delayed, the crew would have to go into minimum crew rest.

Flyer1

tayto lover wrote: »

Not exactly on topic but does anyone know how often planes are checked mechanically to make sure they're safe. I'm very scared of flying.

Aircraft have a service check performed by a licensed engineer ever 24-48hrs depending on the approved maintenance schedule. Plus before each flight pilots perform a pre flight inspection in detail where they check the aircraft. Ground staff then do a final check on the aircraft after it is all boarded/bags loaded etc. before you push off stand. 

I spend about 1200 hours a year in the air. You'll be perfectly safe.

Jamie2k9

Laranca (11h50m excluding crew prep on dep from LCA) is the longest today. Thomson also operated it before but SSH was the longest (12h-12h10 from what I remember, again exclude crew pre base dep). As already said FR to PFO and EI to ADR/BOJ are the main ones.

LXFlyer

Istanbul-Dublin and v.v. would be similar for Turkish Airlines crew.

Fred Swanson

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LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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You’re right - sorry I’d missed the word “today” in relation to LCA in the post above!

I was comparing with Burgas!

Fred Swanson

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Arthur Daley

Presumed there were basic checks made every single flight.

Jamie2k9

moloner4 wrote: »

There use to be a weekly chartered flight Dublin to Tel Aviv in the summer, one way is 2,500 miles

Indeed (12h40m) 11hr10m flying time + 90 min on ground in DUB and not counting the time pre departure.

Its still running but could be different aircraft than the B757-300 this year.

Fred Swanson

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Jamie2k9

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Most likely is, would be to costly to run if it wasn't and not worth their time.

Fred Swanson

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