Sorry about the delay folks...

It's been a busy day at work, and at the end of four flights I thought two things.  One, four flights in a day can be a bit tiring. Second, we were delayed on all departures, and none of them were mine (or El Capitanos) fault.  This led me to thinking more about the nature of delays.

Now delays are just as frustrating for crew as they are for passengers.  To us they mean being late and having to worker harder to try and make up time.  Often it is a cascading event, and frankly I just want a peaceful day when I go to work.

Delays can occur for numerous reasons, and often occur spontaneously when you least expect them.   They can be roughly classified into four groups; passengers, technical, weather and air traffic control.

Passengers, a necessary continual problem causing entity.  How hard is it to be in the departure lounge at boarding time. Missing passengers can usual be found in the frequent flyer lounge or wandering the shops, occasionally in the wrong terminal.  Seriously, airports are not that confusing.  What is worse is checking in your bag then deciding its all too hard, best leave the airport and go sight seeing.  The other common passenger delay is the "I left my phone, laptop, brain at security, shop, car" delay.  Passengers are the number one cause of delay, and there is a simple solution...shock collars.  Fit all passengers with a shock collar that will induce a mild tingle if the passenger is not at the gate twenty minutes prior to departure.  This shock gets stronger the closer we get to departure. Some would say this is cruel, but frankly so is letting your fellow passenger stew in their own sweat on the aircraft.

Technical delays.  Anything that can go wrong will.  Walking onto the flight deck to find it full of engineers scratching their heads is never a confidence boost.  It's a fact of life things break.  Fixing things takes time, but of we tell you the engineers say it will be five minutes you can bet it will be twenty.  Other technical delays are late cleaners, caterers, fuelers, the list goes on and often there is no reason.  Once you accept everybody else is lazy or incompetent, your hair will grow back and you can be at peace with the world.

Weather is always a concern. Rain, storms and fog slow everything down.  You can't fight mother nature but she is easy to blame.

Finally ATC.  If you can't find anybody else to blame, the faceless people in air traffic control are the perfect victims.  Often it is their fault. Why use two runways when you can make everybody hold and use one instead.  Even on a good day their instructions to slow down, speed up, and turn around in circles are often incomprehensible.  At the end of a long day, when you have got the plane back on time you can guarantee they wont let it happen.

So that's all the delays you will see, and certainly never caused by this great people on the flight deck checking their emails or having a coffee.

What delays do you hate?

A day in the life

4:50 am the phone rings stirring me too life, who could want me at this hour?  Hang on, as consciousness waves in, I'm in a hotel room.  That's right I'm in Brisbane.  Must be time to drag myself out of bed and shower and get dressed, and so begins another glamorous day at Qauckadoo Airlines.  Today is day three of a three day trip, so the thought of getting home driving me on.  Thirty minutes later I, along with the Captain are on the way to the airport.

It's definitely too early.  I wonder what the passengers would think if we delayed an hour for some more sleep? No time to think about happy thoughts of bed, time to get flight planning.  Today we are operating three flights; Brisbane-Sydney-Cairns-Sydney (total distance of 2580nm or 4800km), so we gather all the information, weather forecasts and flight plans for all the flights.  After digesting the information we look at the fuel orders and weather we need to order more than the minimum required and send the information to the dispatchers.  This takes about twenty minutes, forty minutes to take-off.

I head out to the aircraft to begin my pre-flight procedures while the Captain diverts to the coffee shop for a caffeine injection.  The sun is starting to make an appearance and it looks like its going to a great morning for flying.  I'm pilot flying for this sector so once I have loaded the flight management computer and run through the other checks its time to brief the other pilot.  The pre-take off briefing is very important.  We discuss the departure route to be flown, how I am going to fly it, the speeds and thrust calculated for take-off and what we will do in an emergency situation.

The flight to Sydney is 416nm (770km) and scheduled to take 1 hour 30 minutes.  For the information geeks the fuel order is 11 300kg with a planned burn of 6600kg.  Once all the 252 passengers have boarded we push back on time, now the fun begins.  It doesn't take long before we are airborne and heading south.  Not much to do in the cruise but monitor and finally get some breakfast, well food that the catering department claim is breakfast, me I'm not so sure.

No delays today going into Sydney which is good though unusual.  This time of morning normal is heavy for arrivals and departures but we seem to be near the head of the cue.  The clearance is straight in for runway 16L, the computer is programmed, what could go wrong?  Nothing today!  The touch down is smooth and after a 10 minute delay waiting for a car parking spot we shut down and get ready to go again.

The delay onto the gate has cut into our 40 minute turn around time, but the crew and cleaners work quick to get ready to depart.  The same ballet goes on on the flight deck and around the aircraft.  Cleaners, caterers, engineers, re-fuelers, ground staff, cabin crew and of course ourselves get the job done and start getting the passengers back on.  The last flight was mainly business people heading South, this time its mainly holiday makers searching for some sun and the atmosphere is a little more relaxed, though we are now nearly 20 minutes late.
(again for the geeks a distance of 1096nm (2030km) with a fuel order of 18400kg and burn of 13000k, take-off weight 131000kg and 241 passengers, flight time 2hours 52 minutes).

The flight up is uneventfully and very smooth, again time for some sight seeing with the above Air Nuigini 737 passing behind us as we over take and a nice view of Townsville before descent. 

A bit of extra speed on the way up and we land in Cairns back on schedule.  Again with forty minutes until departure the ballet begins again.  This time though there is time for a quick leg stretch and chat to the cabin crew before we set course for home. (nerdy bit; fuel order 18 500kg, burn 12 500kg distance 1069nm)

Suddenly we have loaded another 237 passengers and are underway again for the 2 hour 50 minute freedom flight home.  Nothings changed, the weather is still good with a forecast for showers in Sydney.  An un-eventful flight is a good flight.

 Before too long we are on descent again into Sydney.  A quick brief on what we can expect with the Captain and we are ready too land.

A high speed descent into Sydney is the perfect way to end the day.  We touch down smoothly and ahead of schedule.  Taxi to the gate to park the aircraft one minute early and run through the shut down procedures.  We have flown for seven hours and ten minutes, burnt 33700kg of fuel and carried 739 passengers.  Not a bad days work.  Time to go home and have a beer.

Simulator

I should absolutely not be typing a blog entry right now.  I should be reading, studying and thinking.  Yes it is Simulator time at work.  Every four months at Quackadoo Airlines we get to sit in the magic dark box that thinks its an aeroplane, whilst some sadistic maniac with an obsession for making things go wrong puts us through our paces.  This is part of the job I hate, and most pilots hate (if they say they don't they are lying).  If all goes well we get to keep flying, if we don't do well it is more training or even the door, so the pressure is on.

The simulator is just one of the many ways pilots are checked each year, each check needs to be passed before you can continue to fly and is certainly not something I remember being advertised when I wanted to be a pilot.  We do three simulators, sometimes four (sometimes more), a flight check in the aircraft, security training, emergency procedures training and occasional other courses.  There is always something to study for.

I shouldn't get stressed by the simulator but I do.  Any test situation is stressful.  Before you even get into the sim there is 45 minutes of questions with a senior examiner, and you better know your stuff or they will be annoyed and the sim will not go well, you do not prod the sleeping bear! 

Once inside the magic box you settle in for four hours of fun.  Usually, and every session is different, we fly varying instrument approaches to check we know what we are doing.  Many of these will be with an engine not working or another malfunction to make sure we know how to handle all situations (best to do in the sim not the air!).  Yes it is a good learning experience, but fun it is not.  We also look at flying in unusual situations and sharpening our skills.

After the end of the four hours the examiner will point out where you went wrong or what you can improve and if all was good then back to work you go.  I remember my first sim after being checked out at Quackadoo, the examiner said I looked nervous.  I replied that it was my first renewal and yes I was nervous.  He replied don't worry, only about 140 more to go until you retire.  Ten years later I think I probably now have 105 more left, give or take.  Perhaps with time they will get easier, and my wife won't have to put up with a grumpy hubby in the house.