Airline Pilots: Who decides what and where you fly?

[Farlis 2,280]

Title says it all.I want to know how working as a pilot for a real airline works in terms of assingment to a plane and/routes.I assume that you have to work your way up to the heavies starting with turboprops or whatever your airline operates in the small range.And when you are assigned to a specific aircraft-type how does your day to day, week to week routine look like? Do you fly only one route between your hub and the destinations or do you take turns?Basically what factors decide what aircraft and what route you fly from day to day?

[michal 44]

In many airlines they has so called seniority system. Pilots bid on routes they would like to fly (say next month) and the higher your seniority the more chance you have that you will get what you want. Interestingly I just read that Canadian low-cost WestJet doesn't have seniority system which I think is very rare these days.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Farlis 2,280]

Interesting. And the availabilty of those routes to you would depend on your rating, I presume?Wouldn't make much sense in wanting to do fly a route that is served with an aircraft one has no rating for... ;)

[michal 44]

>Interesting. And the availabilty of those routes to you >would depend on your rating, I presume?>of course, you can only bid for routes that are serviced by type of aircraft you are qualified to fly.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Farlis 2,280]

So let's assume you bid and won a route? How long do you stay on it? A couple of days, a week?

[michal 44]

typically for one month although it may depend on an airline.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[dfish 1]

Checkout this forum http://www.pprune.org/forums/index.phpIt's for airline pilots, I'm sure they can answer your question in detail.Dave FisherCYYZP4 2.8 GB 478P 533 MHZ CPUP4P800S Asus Motherboard768 DDRGeforce Ti 4200/128Maxtor 40 Gig ATA 133 HD x2WDC WD800 80 Gig HDhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

[Sonar5 3]

Hi Dave,Why would he need to go there, the first reply pretty much nailed it? Most are done on a BID Basis.Avsim has many Pilots here, and quite a few more that are not pilots that can answer questions without going off-site somewhere else.And that site is NOT just for airline pilots, as it has many many members who are not airline pilots yet still interested in aviation.Regards,Joe****************Grab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]