AA and RDU
 

Here is a quick question for anyone who knows. With Eagle I have been going into RDU a lot. I notice they have one flight a day to London Gatwick. They use the 777 and from what people have told me, the airplane goes back and forth between RDU and Gatwick, thats all. My question is this, given that is not domicle, where do they get a crew from? Are there a select few senior crews that live in RDU that get to do that flight only? Wouldn't be a bad gig by the way. Or more likely are crews DH'd in. Just wondering thats all. Thanks

is a long story that the AA folks will no doubt fill you in on shortly.

Cheers,
WG

RDU used to be both an Eagle and AA base. not sure how they staff that flight though.:confused:

A good question and One I can answer with a moderate Diatribe. Plus I am on the AM hub turn an have a few minutes. It is a good history in Airline MGT both the baffonery on USAir's part and the Sharpness of AMR's . Disclaimer: I don't work for AA. So your mileage may vary with some of my "Facts" concerning AA scheduling.

AA had a Pilot domicile in RDU around 1989-early 1990's. It was a domestic Base put there to compete with Piedmont's ( CLT and GSO base) and Delta's (ATL base) who both had strong holds in the Southeast.

Short Story.....USAir merges with Piedmont Aug 89 and things go South (no pun inteneded) very quickly. This is about the time AMR opens up the RDU base.

Piedmont had a CLT-LGW route authority at the time flown by a 767, which was very profitable. Piedmont (now as USAIR )also has BWI-LGW route authority which was purchased from TWA for a very tidy sum, also flown with a 767 and also very profitable. USAir had route authority to fly PIT-LGW but I don't think never actually got to operate it as USAir.
USAir struggles for a couple more years and gets a cash infusion from the First Intl International investment Code Share from British Airways. After much Ado from United, AMR and Delta, British Airways buys 25% stake of USAir and gives a badly need flow of cash. The Catch is USAIR must give up all of it's US to UK route authority because of Anti Trust stuff associated with mini merger with British Airways. AA gets the CLT-LGW route authority for free and they move it to RDU and start immediate service with a 767.
I am not sure but I think UAL or DELTA got the other route authority from BWI.

So USAir gives up it's BWI-LGW, CLT-LGW and PIT-LGW. British Airways intends to fly those routes with it's own crews and aircraft but short story is they end up WET-Leasing USAIr's 767's to Fly the routes from BWI and CLT.
They have been flying the PIT/PHL-LGW route with their own 747. Imagine a USAir owned Aircraft painted in British Air colors and USAir Flight crews in BA uniforms that all speak with a North Carolina drawl. (Howdy do Gander this here is Ol' Speed Burd Flaight 2 lookin fur our oceanic clearance) I can still imagine the Real British Airways crews cringing.This goes on a couple years Until British Air realizes that it made a big mistake investing with USAir and terminates the Investment code share agreement and starts a new one with American (maybe planned all along by B. Crandal, who knows?)

So now USAIr has lost all of its US-London route authority (which it paid millions for from TWA) and didn't get one dime in return for it. And American didn't have to pay for their new one.(formerly owned/operated by Usair)

So Today you see a AA-777 operating RDU-LGW. I imagine those crews are based in ORD, JFK or DFW. I imagine they either Deadhead from these bases to RDU to begin or end the trip or RDU is a Mid trip layover........

For Example and ORD crew on day 1 might Deadhead ORD-RDU. Day 2 they would fly RDU-LGW. Day 3 LGW-ORD and be done. Or they could fly a 4 day trip. 1.ORD-LGW, 2. LGW-RDU,
3.RDU-LGW, 4. LGW-ORD. I am sure an AA pilot can straighten this part out.

As Paul Harvey would say..........."there is the rest of the story!"

Hey, thanks redeye. Airlines have a long inteeresting history

In a nutshell. The 3 crew pairing is taken from another base. More often than not DFW. The kicker is the FB may come from ORD or BOS etc. There are some senior folks who live in RDU who were based there and are now based in DFW.

So yes, it is a great deal for them to sit home, drive to RDU and pick up the trip to Gatwick, skipping the DH.

Sorry I missed you down in DFW. One more week of sim and I am done. Hope you are enjoying Eagle.

AA

Just looked it up, this month it is flown by all DFW. And the flight today flown to LGW is mid sequence. The original pairing is DH from DFW-LGW, next day LGW-RDU, tnext day RDU-LGW, and finally last day home is DH from LGW-DFW. The Captain;s seniority is #2 system wide.

The flight is "subsidized" by area corporations.. ie: they buy out first class, + lots of cargo, anybody in the back is gravy.

It was the Former Piedmont's crown Jewel of revenue route.
Ed Colodny (USAir's CEO at the time) said there was no money in the International market. I guess there was just too much money to be made domestically............NOT

:eek: Are you the guy who called the Lowes nascar track in Charlotte the "North Carolina Performing Arts Center" on the PA? The Old Piedmont boys wanted blood, so you went to FEDEX?

primarily some major pharmaceutical company right? sounds like a great way to jumpseat to england, if you dont mind the long commute into town from gatwick

Nope but I have to Laugh. It took me a couple years to understand the Noth Carolinah boys fully but I liked them a lot. They were a fine bunch. It helped the transistion to the MEM dialect/drawl somewhat.
Besides Piedmont was the Only Major Airline back then to Sponsor a Nascar.
I always thought it was cool and I met Ricky Rudd in CLT on a Flight.

Hey, thanks. Eagle is pretty good. Been flying like crazy. Everyday on rsv so far. I have 60hrs so far since I started and my first day of IOE on May 2. So I have 6 days of rsv starting tommorrow already have a 2 day worth 12hrs and a ton of open time this weekend. I'll probably round off the first month with 90-100hrs in the plane. Good for time building.

"In a nutshell. The 3 crew pairing is taken from another base. More often than not DFW. The kicker is the FB may come from ORD or BOS etc. There are some senior folks who live in RDU who were based there and are now based in DFW."

And we know what "FB" stands for.....

FOOD BOY

The trip is usually a 6 day trip out of DFW.

DFW-LGW AA 50
LGW-RDU AA 173
RDU-LGW AA 174
LGW-DFW AA 51

The RDU-LGW flight is a subsidy by a company named Glaxo Wellcome that does tons of business in RDU and London, the flight is usually mostly Glaxo employees.

Yes, FB is "Food Boy" and FC is "Film Critic!" At TWA the term was "Eater", UAL calls 'em "Bunkies." Every airline has a cute term for them I guess. 73

73,

Too funny !! Yes we called them Eaters !!!! At Focus Air Cargo, we called them Movie Watchers. UPS we call them "chefs"....lol.

RFO, or more commonly, "food bi%ch" is generally used around these parts.
fbh

Whatever their term, must be a tough life! Never done any Int'l, but seems like the only landings one gets would be every three months - in the sim.

On an interesting note, it seems like AA is the only airline that only uses one CA on super long haul, and three FOs. Most other airlines use 2 CAs and 2 FOs. Yet another concession, up where the sun don't shine!

Hoping to regain a kick a$$ contract soon. 73

United has always used 1 Captain and 2 or 3 F/Os depending on the scheduled flight time. I've done a number of JFK-HKG (scheduled 15:55) and JFK-NRT (scheduled 14:00) as the Captain with three rated F/Os.

The extra F/Os are used on all segments, that is no deadhead or 1/2 pay if one of the crossings doesn't actually require the extra pilot.

I stand corrected, thanks fireman. I think DAL, CAL and NWA get 2 CAs and 2 FOs.

Continental uses one captiain, one first officer and one or two IRO (International Relief Officers) depending on the trip lenght. All are typed in the A/C

OK I'm gonna shut up now since they all changed their requirements!

PI did their homework and found that a car in the top 10 had more time on TV and more buying power than ads on television. The car spent a lot of time on camera and combined with ads with McLean Stevenson, the PR program went fairly well.

The Ed came into town. Ed told the press in RDU (one of the old strongholds in the South) that 'cool northern efficiency would replace warm southern hospitality'. Score a big one for Ed on the Idiot Scale. Then Ed had his 'marketing guru' Randy Malin dismantle PSA and the Florida Shuttle, the former doing well in its market and the latter doing great in the Florida market. Malin then decided the 767 out of CLT to Bermuda was too big.. never mind that the cargo paid for the flight.. Randy put a 727 on it and the load factor was close to 100%. Never mind that it could not carry the cargo.

And of course, the race car was redneck so it had to go. Never mind that it was a marketing success, got incredible bang for the buck and the viewing audience second only to the NFL.

And while all this was going on, AA decided to go into RDU. The airport authority agreed they needed a new runway BUT they didn't want to spend all that money on buying land so they located the new runway a bit too close to the old one for parallel approaches. I would have LOVED to have been a fly on the wall when Crandall found out about that one. I believe this was the first airport with the PRM ILS approaches with reduced spacing. AND the airport planners decided that high speed taxiways were NOT needed. (who are these guys??) And the state politicians wanted international flights out of the capitol. Alas, it all folded in on itself much like BNA and AA retreated back to its strongholds.

Finally, Ed was known for two other quotes. 1) No one's career will be adversely effected by this merger (I think he meant in management) and 2) We know how to run an airline."Ed reportedly said that originally he wanted to be a concert violinist and more than a few airline pilots wish he had gotten his desire.