Crew
The Crew tab (Alt+W, or type CREW) is where you manage the people
who work for your airline: the pilots who fly your flights and the engineers who work in
your own hangar. Press Tab to move between its views.
Your starting team
When the first aircraft you maintain yourself is leased, four flight crews rated on it join, with a team of engineers rated on that aircraft and its engines, large enough for its line checks and an engine change. Wet-leased aircraft come with their own crew and maintenance, and need nobody. After that, who you hire is up to you.
The roster
A flight needs a full crew to leave: a captain and a first officer on most types. The roster chains each aircraft’s flights into duties, ending back at your base where it can, and gives them to the pilots who can legally fly them, those who have flown least first. It looks up to six days ahead, and leaves a duty alone from the day before.
It follows European flight time limits: the longest flight duty depends on when it starts and how many sectors it has, and there are limits on duty and flight hours over rolling periods, and rest between duties. A person’s record shows them against each limit.
Crew control acts on what it’s told. An ASM retiming or cancelling a flight has the roster look at that day again; an MVT saying a flight has landed tells it when the crew are free for their next flight.
A crew whose duty starts away from base with nobody there travels on another airline at its fare. A duty ending away from your base means a hotel. With no crew to be found, Crew Control warns you the day before. A flight still without one two hours after its time is cancelled.
Crew control follows each duty through the stations’ estimates. A crew who would go past their flight duty limit come off the flight that would take them over it, and those after it, and Crew Control reports them out of hours on the Alerts. A duty running late can also leave a crew without the rest they need before their next one, and they come off that.
From the day before, the roster is published. A duty that loses someone then is filled by a crew whose own duty at that time was cancelled, or by calling out someone on standby, and by nobody else.
Flight
The Flight view shows each pilot rating by rank: how many the next week’s hours need, how many are on the books, on duty, on standby, joining and training, and how many duties to come are short.
Standby
The Standby view is the standby plan: each line has so many pilots of a rank and rating on
standby every day, from a time (UTC) for so many hours. N sets a new line, moving between
its fields with Tab and changing each with ↑ and ↓;
Enter on a line changes how many, and none takes it off. Or type
STANDBY V40 CPT HOME 0500 12 2. A change takes effect from the day after, as the roster
is published by then.
- Airport
- At the airport, ready to go at once. It counts in full as duty. A flight duty from airport standby is shortened by the standby beyond four hours, and the two together can’t be more than 16 hours.
- Home
- At home, at most 16 hours, and called in with time to get to the airport. A quarter of it counts as duty. A flight duty from it is shortened by the standby beyond six hours, not counting the night before the call, and the two together keep within the hours someone can be awake.
The roster puts people on standby after it has crewed the flights, those who have flown least first. Next shows how many of the next day’s have someone on them, and Called 28D how many were called out in the last 28 days.
Engineers
Engineers hold type ratings: an airframe rating for the aircraft’s checks, and an engine rating to change its engines. Engineers rated on the same family can work on all of it.
- Needed
- The most this rating’s work takes at once: the heaviest line job, or what’s booked in the hangar if that’s more.
- On books, At work
- Rated engineers working for you, and those of them not away training.
- Joining, Training
- Rated engineers hired who haven’t started yet, and those on type training for this rating.
- Contract
- How many of those on the books or joining are from an agency.
The hangar
A check’s man-hours say how many engineers it takes, each working one shift a day. Work in your own hangar needs that many engineers holding the rating, free for the whole visit, as well as a bay. Without them the planner books the work later, or sends a heavy check to a maintenance organisation. Line checks can only be done at your base: if there aren’t the engineers for one, Maintenance Control says so on the Alerts, once. See Maintenance.
People
The People view lists everyone. Enter opens a person’s record: their ratings, when their next recurrent check comes round, and their training. From the record, T sends them on type training for a new rating, which takes weeks and has a price, and they’re away until it’s done. L lets them go, with notice pay if they’ve started. Neither can be done while they’re on a duty.
Recurrent checks come round every year for engineers. They’re booked automatically, and take the person away for a couple of days. One that comes round during a duty starts when it ends, and they come off any duties it then clashes with.
Candidates
People looking for work come and go day by day, and each is listed until they go elsewhere. Some
are already rated; most would need training. Enter offers to hire the one selected, or
type HIRE C0012. They start after their notice period.
Contract engineers
On the Engineers view, C orders engineers holding the selected rating from an
agency, or type CONTRACT V70 12. ↑ and ↓ change how many. They
start within days, stay for a fixed term and cost well over a staff engineer. Their agency sees to
their training and checks. Standing one down early from their record ends the contract, with
nothing more to pay.
Costs
Pilots also earn flight pay for each hour flown. A base salary is paid from the day someone starts until they leave, whatever they’re doing. It counts in the operating report with training and notice pay, and the report shows what it comes to for each block hour flown. Contract engineers count in the crew cost too, but not in that hourly figure.