excesive staff?

[blair21088]

So i was looking at my personnel page and decided to do some math. I have 161 aircraft in my fleet and the following minimum staffing levels:
5320 cabin crew
2280 pilots
2290 maintenance staff
This breaks down to 33 cabin crew, 14 pilots, and 14 maintenance personnel per aircraft. This just seems to be extremely excessive. Assuming pilots are flying 8 hour shifts according to FAA regulation, that still leaves every plane with double the number of pilots it would need it flew for 24 hours plus one additional flight crew. what am i missing that makes these numbers make sense?

[Meraki]

For myself:
86 Aircraft
2200 Cabin Crew
1180 Pilots

22 Cabin Crew/Aircraft
13 Pilots/Aircraft

It does seem a little high, considering my average fleet utilization is 14h.

[ban2]

this has been discussed and explained why in another post as follows.

I quote

" I think the logic goes along the lines of what Sami has stated before, labor costs are just a rounded expense for your company. Theres no real deep meaning for staffing levels. Least, as of now. "

[Big Ern]

Actually the pilot / cabin crew amounts are pretty close to reality. Even though these are here as cost factor.

14 pilots = 7 flight decks per a/c and depending on the aircraft you'll have to divide the cabin crew amount to get how many crews you have per a/c.

Do remember all the days off, vacations, rest demands, etc. It's not 8hr shifts every day they can fly...

/BE

[demage]

I love this game.  I just put on a route for an ATR 42, a 4 hour return flight and my staff increased by 10 economics and finance people.  It must be due to the large amount of cash I will be raking in on that flight that I need so many of these guys to count it.  Rubbin my hands together at the thought of that.   

[swiftus27]

Actually the pilot / cabin crew amounts are pretty close to reality. Even though these are here as cost factor.

14 pilots = 7 flight decks per a/c and depending on the aircraft you'll have to divide the cabin crew amount to get how many crews you have per a/c.

Do remember all the days off, vacations, rest demands, etc. It's not 8hr shifts every day they can fly...

/BE

There IS a need for 13 pilots per plane.

Assuming that you always have two people in the chairs up front every second of every day you would need 336 hours.  Okay, let's assume that there is an additional 6 hours per day per crew dedicated to flight planning (pilots in the weather room while others still on the plane).  That would mean 12 hours per day total (2 pilots, 2 hours, 3 sets of crew) or 84 hours per week.  That totals 420 hours. 

Assuming a 40 hour work week, 13 pilots would put in 520 hours of work.   Pilots generally get up to three weeks of vacation.  That would mean 1 out of 13 is off but is getting paid for it.  SO.... 12 pilots x 40 hours and you get 480 hours of total work.

Not so hard to imagine now, is it!?

[Big Ern]

There IS a need for 13 pilots per plane.

Assuming that you always have two people in the chairs up front every second of every day you would need 336 hours.  Okay, let's assume that there is an additional 6 hours per day per crew dedicated to flight planning (pilots in the weather room while others still on the plane).  That would mean 12 hours per day total (2 pilots, 2 hours, 3 sets of crew) or 84 hours per week.  That totals 420 hours. 

Assuming a 40 hour work week, 13 pilots would put in 520 hours of work.   Pilots generally get up to three weeks of vacation.  That would mean 1 out of 13 is off but is getting paid for it.  SO.... 12 pilots x 40 hours and you get 480 hours of total work.

Not so hard to imagine now, is it!?

Was your point to agree with me or why did you quote me? 

As I mentioned the figures are pretty close to reality.

And there are differences between countries - in Finland any employee gets 4-5 weeks vacation a year. Plus that calculation of 40hrs per week (with 3 weeks of vacation) goes over the yearly maximum duty limit. At least according JAR-OPS / the new EU-OPS. Not sure about FAA regulations.

/BE

[toyotaboy95]

This might help. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081220114543AAfRmFD

[NorgeFly]

For a short haul airline (multiple short flights each day) the rough figure would be around five full crews per aircraft in order to cover all flights, standby duties, days off, annual leave and crew sickness etc. In other words, around 10 pilots for each aircraft and anything from 5 (CRJ100) to 20 (737-400) cabin crew. Long haul figures would be much more I would think as crew have to stay over for rest periods etc.