Hilarious Staff Requirements

[xyeahtony]

Please tell me how this is realistic? In what airline does one need 300 pilots for 11 planes?

I have 10 extra large planes (DC-8) and the game thinks i need 300 pilots for all those eleven planes.... umm...




I mean 100 pilots seems a lot more plausible but 300? come on lol

[Luperco]

Thats quite strange as I, with 15 planes I need only 185 pilots that is still high.

In my case, for a plane with 3 pilot each, it needs 12 pilots per plane. So some crew rotation is considered.

I don't know why you need 30 pilots per plane (10 crew), maybe your planes are more time flying that mines.

[Sami]

9 crews per long range plane is rather normal.

One real life reference airline had 7 "very large planes" and they had 163 pilots employed for it, 2 man crew. It averages to 11,7 crews per plane... (and this was just some years ago, not in the 1970s when there was even more slack)

So absolutely nothing strange here...

[xyeahtony]

the staffing requirements for say a 747/A380/A340 or basically any widebody will clearly be drastically higher than a narrowbody DC8. It would not be fair to place the staffing requirements of those aircraft onto other narrowbody "very large planes" that are clearly smaller. A lot 707s/DC8s do not travel with backup pilots and never did.

nonetheless ur explanation makes sense but doesn't make the whole situation any less painful haha.

[NovemberCharlie]

Don't forget the DC8 has a larger cockpit crew than a modern widebody

[xyeahtony]

Don't forget the DC8 has a larger cockpit crew than a modern widebody

yes but modern widebodies are generally use on ULH routes that DC8s can't fly, so they will have backup crews. On your typical 747 flight over 8 hours you will have 5 pilots. I suspect it is similar for A340s, 777s and A380s.

meanwhile ur average DC8 flight won't hit longer than 8 hours. From my understanding of Pan Am ops back in the day, their 707s operated with a crew of 3. Sometimes you had a 4th backup pilot for RTW routes, but most TATL routes were done with 3 (2 pilots, flight engineer)

[Sami]

On your typical 747 flight over 8 hours you will have 5 pilots. I suspect it is similar for A340s, 777s and A380s.

Well, no. For example, we fly all routes with 2 or 3 pilots (incl. up to 12+ hrs to Singapore, generally speaking about 10+ hrs is 3 pilots) .. not a 747 but 2 pilot plane anyway. Some Asian carriers may use 4 pilots but 5 .. no. (and 8 hr segments go easily with 2 pilots)

(But this is unrelated to this topic, but the reference numbers I gave reflect to these facts; and did not of course talk of some 16 hour extremely long flights which are very rare anyway)