Originally Posted by
Littlegirl
Well on some flights, airlines have three or four pilots and some airlines, not BA, use pilots to just do the cruise section instead of having three or four all trained to land and take off.
However BA do not do this and are not planning to do this either!
All our pilots are fully trained and all can land and takeoff as well as obviously flying during the cruise.
All Pilots are trained to land and take off, you can't get a licence without it!!
Yep on long flights there are more pilots needed and as pointed out on some airlines very junior ones are used for cruise but they are still trained to get it up and down.
I am not 100% sure but I believe it is the case that the pilot who takes off has to land so say the Captain takes off then a replacement pilot takes over the Captain has to come back to bring her down.