I was quite fortunate and pleased to have channel 9 on both ways for my trip this week.

On one flight, the flight deck audio only worked from the left ear. On the other flight, it only worked from the right ear. The headphones played audio from both ears with any other selection; both airplanes were 772; and both times I sat on the A side. On the first flight, I also tried plugging in my own earbuds, and then it still only played left ear.

Why did it work like that?

I have no idea. If a passenger reported that to me on one of my flights I'd write it up and have maintenance take a look at it.

It is a mono source but you'd think it would play on both channels. I've never used it on a 777.

Do mainline crew work on back to back flights on the same route/aircraft (e.g. short distance routes like EWR-BOS-EWR)? I know that is the case often for regional crew.

Regionals have a much much higher incidence of staying together and staying with their aircraft than mainline do.

I fly EWR-JNB in Polaris maybe once or twice a year and while on the last flight I saw 2CA/2FO, I honestly do not recall seeing any pilots in Polaris but defintiely could see that all 48 Polaris seats on the 787-9 were occupied. That is a shorter trip than EWR-DEL but at over 14 hours, wouldn't the same requirements apply?

Pilots are scheduled to stay together for the length of their trip. A trip will last one to four days (short haul) and up to six days (long haul). On the longer long-haul trips, the "bunkies" (3rd and 4th pilots) may not stay with the operating pilots for the whole trip.

Flight attendant duty time regulations are less strict than those for pilots so we often have a different cabin crew on every leg. Sometimes we'll fly two legs in a row together but that's less common.

Aircraft routing is based on the needs of the department that handles that and often has little correlation to crew routing. It is not unusual to swap from one airport into another identical airplane for our next leg.

The rules for augmented (more than two pilots) operations are in 14 CFR 117 and they are rather complex. The FAA defines a number of levels of crew rest facilities and the type of facility impacts the maximum duty time for the pilots. Again, F/A regulations are different. Some ultra-long-haul routes are operated on a Fatigue Risk Management System exemption where specific rules are created to match that exact flight. An FRMS flight will have additional requirements that then allow additional duty time.

Had an MX issue last night that I’m curious as to what the process is.

Flight 920 — ORD-LHR — was delayed 4.5 hours to an avionics fan replacement. About 2.5 hours in, the fan was replaced but per captain, was triggering faults in other systems. After another 1.5 hours, he said these faults did not affect the plane’s airworthiness and invoked an “MEL” to override and allow us to take off.

I might have the term wrong…it was a late night…

This is first time I’ve heard this term and am curious as to what scenarios it covers and what latitude the pilot has to invoke.

MEL - minimum equipment list, can still be airworthy.

Each airplane has an FAA approved MEL or Minimum Equipment List. It is derived from the manufacture's Master MEL and is customized to match the installed equipment on the airline's fleet.

Any fault on the airplane grounds it. Some faults, that are covered by the MEL, can be deferred and continued flight can be authorized before the fault is repaired. Some MELs impose restrictions on the operation such as no ETOPS flight, no flight in icing conditions, etc. In such a case, Dispatch has to evaluate the restrictions as it will apply to the current flight. If the restriction(s) is not compatible with the current flight then they look for an aircraft swap with a flight that can accept those restrictions. Some MELs require concurrence with the NOC such as an inoperative lavatory. They will evaluate, in that example, the passenger load and length of flight to determine if an inoperative lavatory is acceptable for that flight.

Once the discrepancy is MEL'd, the Captain has the option to refuse the airplane due to his safety concerns. A Captain might refuse an airplane with degraded climate control on an August flight to a Central American city, or an inoperative generator on a night flight over mountainous terrain with forecast convective activity. Other than refusing the aircraft, the pilots don't have any latitude on MELs.

LarryJ knows that I'm going to give him a hard time and throw a monkey wrench into his answer here.
Yes, pilots generally are scheduled to stay together for the length of their trip. Except when we need a seat to perform some sort of training event. So let's say we have a pair of pilots on the Airbus flying a four day trip together. That trip includes a flight from DEN to Jackson Hole with a layover and onward flight the next day to SFO. If we have a Captain who needs to be Jackson Hole qualified (special airport conditions) and there is a Line Check Pilot already in the pairing, we could pull the first officer and send him as a Deadhead from DEN to SFO to sit out the JAC flying and put the Captain needing the qualification into the cockpit to fly those two legs (DEN-JAC-SFO). Then we'd deadhead the qualifying Captain back to DEN. The pulled first officer would pick up the rest of their trip from SFO. These are the intricacies of training scheduling, and we can mess up otherwise nice clean pairings to meet the needs of the business.

For those who may remember him, I had 757FO as my captain the other day. He mentioned he no longer participates on FT, but wishes everyone safe travels. He says the 787 is a great airplane, but misses the 757.

I sure wish 757FO would c:cool:me back...

Here's a first for me. Boarded a UX flight this morning (Skywest E175); the captain and two FAs were onboard. But the captain announced that the FO had misplaced his ID, and TSA would not let him through security. He even showed his Real ID license and name/info on the UX manifest on his iPad, but they would not budge. I suggested to the captain that he buy a refundable ticket, get a boarding pass, go through security, and refund the ticket :) Alas the hotel found it in his room and had their van high-tail it over to the airport. We left only 30 minutes late. The FO was clearly embarrassed!

To our UA pilot friends -- could he have tried to get a jumpseat boarding pass for his own flight to get through security? The captain said the lobby agents knew the FO as he frequently passed through the airport. Any other options if his ID was not found in time?

I would be more than a little surprised if a crewmember would be permitted to operate a flight without company ID even if they did make it through security (I suppose as long as they have their actual license and medical on them...) but a concern could be "do they not have their ID because the company lifted it from them due to a pending suspension/termination"?

That said I remember sitting in DTW many, many moons ago -- it was when I had my first Smart Watch (the Timex Beepwear Pro complete with is own email address) -- and a prepaid phone card to call mom & dad if something went wrong... I was in high school and it was pre-McNamera terminal so somewhere between 1998 and mid-2001 IIRC... Anyway, I was sitting in the Mesaba (NW express) gate area waiting for my flight to PLN and an agent had their radio turned up far too loud -- "Yeah, so flight xxx... your first officer is here but made it to security without any ID so crew scheduling is trying to find a replacement for you, standby for an update".

The same gate agent then grabbed the PA mic and announced that flight xxx was delayed due to "air traffic control" with an update to follow :rolleyes:.

That was before I logged all of my flights so I don't have exact numbers but I want to say we were delayed by ~45 minutes and no idea if the original FO was allowed through -- after all this was in a far more "trusting" era of aviation -- or if we got a new FO.

to get through security, absolutely, to get on the plane with a seat assignment, absolutely. But you're gonna need a company ID to show to match the crew list as a working crew member.