At CityFlyer, report time is one hour before the first duty. Usually flight and cabin crew will head to the aircraft together but if one set of crew finishes their brief quickly and wants to grab something from Pret, duty free or Boots they might go on ahead. Crew should board the aircraft at least 30 minutes prior to departure. It’s all pretty slick and usually if the aircraft hasn’t been sat on the ground you’ll be boarding the incoming aircraft just as the outgoing crew are gathering their belongings. It gets pretty hectic at this moment, with cleaners, caterers and two sets of crew trying to do their thing in a small jet!

At a lot of European airports crew are driven directly from staff search to the aircraft, bypassing the terminal. At other airports the crew will generally stick together, even at the ones where transport time from the hotel is generous and allows time to pop into duty free or to grab a coffee.

Arriving back at base, LCY arrivals is so small that there’s really no opportunity to split up unless one of the crew is transferring to another duty (in which case they remain airside) or need to visit the toilet. Most turnarounds are done on the same aircraft so the crew will remain on board but where there’s an aircraft change the crew will generally set up camp at an empty gate and people will go off on their own if they need anything whilst someone watches the bags.

It’s just standard on MF. We’re told we have to do it so we do - not sure why! It’s just always been that way.

You can certainly request one. Provided we can leave enough for the return then it shouldn’t be a problem at all.

It will depend on how many ladies ones they use on your flight, the crew won’t want to give any extra ladies bags out as the may be needed for the return flight, I would say it will most likely be possible.
Saying that I wouldn’t be seen dead with the ladies bag but to each their own. :p

Thanks for all the replies..

What do flight attendants think of people who are clearly flying CW for the first time? I suppose evidenced by them taking photographs and general excitement etc

AEDs are fitted to all aircraft and is checked for serviceability before each sector. Every single crew member is trained in their use and is capable of completing CPR in line with BA Resuscitation Guidelines.
In the unfortunate event we’d have to use the AED, it would be expected that’d we’d rotate around crewmembers to ensure that the compressions we’re effective and not being delivered from someone who was exhausted.
We may (or may not) request assistance from healthcare professionals, however crew involved in CPR must adhere to BA Guidelines.

i did once, in the last year, unfortunately witness the AED being used on a flight. The crew did ask for any medics on board to help and the compressions continued throughout the diverted landing with the unfortunate passenger on the floor in the aisle throughout. Whilst clearly distressing for the crew and passengers, this one event gave me massive confidence in the ability of BA crew to handle this sort of situation and it moved me to write to BA to tell them how impressed I’d been by this crew. It really made me feel I’d be in safe hands if the same happened to me.

I saw on the CSM’s iPad recently flying Dublin to Heathrow that my seat number was in green, and said “CR” underneath or beside it, as well as a little arrow. Does anybody know what this means? Mine was the only seat number in green as far as I could tell.

I also think, but can’t be sure, that at some point my entry moved to the top of the list, whereas initially it was further down the list as I was in row 2. I would have assumed in order of seat number would be the default.

I had been upgraded shortly before boarding, the flight was full.

Thanks!

It indicates you were upgraded, very very rarely we have customers with a red downward arrow when downgraded.

There are two ways that we can view the customer lists, either by seat row or by value, you may have been at the top of the list as a GGL.

A few questions about single engine taxi please:

When do you [decide to] start the second engine?
Do you keep the APU running and use it’s bleed air to start the second engine or is it the first engine’s job?
When taxying on one engine do you have to compensate when turning for the asymmetric thrust or is this automatically done?

Thanks for satisfying my geeky curiosity!

we liase with ATC as to how long we can expect before line up clearance. This gives us time to start the engine, allow it to run for a specified time dependant on engine type before we are allowed to apply rake off thrust (engine warm up) and complete the after start and before take off procedures. Yes APU bleed is used. The APU burns tea spoons compared to engines at idle and yes re the asymmetric thrust. Not a massive issue given the levels involved though. If we’d be needing a lot of thrust we would start both together.

Heathrow Airport are planning to use the 3 runways in four different configurations and rotate through them to provide respite.

You can see them described in the latest consultation that has just opened.

Essentially, if you consider working from northernmost to southernmost, and where M=Mixed, D=Departures and L=Landing, the modes will be;
MDL
MLD
LDM
DLM

Mixed mode won’t be a planned configuration on the middle runway, because the missed approach procedure has to go straight ahead (there’s a runway either side), which means it will conflict with a departure from the same runway (ideally you’d want the missed approach to turn away from the runway if there’s a departure just getting airborne). To enable mixed mode on the middle runway, you’d have to build in a procedural longitudinal separation, for example, the departure must be rolling by the time the inbound is at 6nm from touchdown (so that if there is a go around, there’s enough separation from the departure).....this restriction would cripple the throughput of that runway.

Hope that makes sense!

Super interesting, many thanks. Currently there are only 2 configurations LD, DL and they get swapped according to the day of the month, and every day at 3pm. So basically each configuration is used 50% of the time.
Once we move to 4 configs, when will they be in use? 25% of the time each on average?

All of that detail is being consulted on at the moment, along with matters such as keeping, reversing or abandoning the westerly preference.

I didn’t think 09L is currently used for departures?

Consultations (whether for Heathrow runways, before a round of corporate redundancies, or prior to changing the schedule of a school) tend to be purely a box ticking exercise. There must be a preference, published or not, from the airport/airlines. Any insight as to what that is?
[Disclaimer: am affected by LHR flight paths yet strongly in favour of Rwy3]

If you read the consultation, you’ll see that HAL are going to use all four modes equally, and the consultation is on the duration of period of each mode.

Currently, LHR operates a westerly preference, so that means we continue on westerlies (Landing FROM London, taking off TO Windsor) up to a 5kt easterly wind (5kt tailwind) in order to reduce noise over west London.

The consultation is trying to determine whether that stays or changes.

I’m BA Silver but my other half has just had a positive answer for a job application with BA, so she will be joining a few of you in the skies soon. I’m pretty close to Gold, but was wondering if it’s worth achieving/maintaining status whilst (I assume...) being able to enjoy her staff travel benefits? Can you use the lounges on ID90 tickets, status or otherwise?

Thanks

Yes you can, go for Gold.

aka the ‘Girls’ School’ as 43 called them?