Captains flying right seat?
 

Just curious to see what is standard at other company's. Does you contract or company allow captains to fly in the right seat? If so is there a time limit on when the resource is unavailable to the company?

Can you specify the company name also.

Thanks

Yup. Our company allows captains to sit right seat however; there is only one pilot in command. The captain sitting right seat assumes the role of the First Officer (naturally) but overall the guy sitting in the left seat has the final authority.

A while back an Airline (not going to mention name) had pilots listed as captains but in order to be compensated as such they had to fly x-amount of hours as PIC. The airline would have these pilots fly within 5-10hrs shy of the x-amount hrs needed to get captain pay and have them sit right seat the rest of the month. This of course was before the union.

At Mesa a captain can fly right seat, the more senior of the two captains is the PIC, both are compensated as normal captain rate at whatever longevity they have.

Which company is this?

RAH allows this at the captain's payrate for whatever their doh is. I think its great, same pay with no responsibility but thats just me.

Don't you have to be requal'd in the right-seat to do so?

I think its dangerous to assume that a captain will be just as good at being in the right seat, without training and recent experience

Is this just allowed for newly upgraded captain or can a senior guy get junior manned to do a flight in the right seat?

at RAH CA's are dual seat qualified and at each training event we are re-qualed in the right seat.

Ive had Captns senior to me who bid rsv have to sit right seat for me, regardless of seniority and i have sat right seat for Captns junior to me.

Does you company have any rules on management pilot flying with line pilots? From what i remember, Horizon didn't allow management pilot to fly revenue flight unless it was with a check airman.

Is this standard at other companies?

Comair requires that 20% of our Captains sit in the right seat. Starting next month that number goes to 28%.

An additional 8% of Comair's Captains have volunteered to fill the right seat to avoid going to JFK, for a total of 36% of Captains in the right seat.

They get re-trained on the right seat for free, and have recall rights to the left seat for 12 months in case Mesa goes T.U.

At PDT, yes CAs are able to fly in the right seat. Sometimes it is forced upon them (especially the junior CAs) in order to cover the open flights in the schedule or as part of a junior-manning event when short on FOs. The only time a CA could not fly as a FO is for about 10 or so CAs that are scattered near the top of the seniority list who were never qualified as SIC in the DHC-8.

In the past, I think it was generally accepted that in the case of two CA's flying together, that the CA who was awarded the trip as part of their final schedule would be the PIC. A few years ago, the company put out a letter to suggest that the more senior pilot would be considered PIC when two CA's flew together.

There was a bunch of open time for both CAs and FOs a couple of years ago, and the company was offering double premium pay (8.0 hours) above the published pay credit for the trip. I couldn't find a CA trip that I liked, but there was a quick 4-leg trip (about 4.0 hours) as FO in the right seat of the DHC-8-300 that I bid for and was awarded. The CA on the trip was junior to me in seniority, so I had never before worked with him where he sat left seat while I sat right seat.

The flight release showed his name as PIC so I just went along for the ride, as I wasn't going to make a big deal about the company's letter that indicated that I should be PIC due to my seniority. After all, my purpose in bidding the trip was to make some extra $$$, not to displace a fellow pilot from the trip and seat that he had previously been awarded by the company.

Anyone at PDT who holds a CA position is paid at CA rates regardless of which seat they occupy. So I was making more per hour as an FO, than the CA on the same plane was, because of my seniority. Then there was the fact that we were in the 50 seat -300, which pays another $5+ per hour over the basic 37 seat -100 CA rate. And of course to further sweeten the pot, there was the double premium pay which creates 12 hours of CA pay for 4 hours of FO work. The bottom line is that I was making more per hour to sit right seat in a turboprop than US Airways mainline pays an A330 CA!

Previous company I don't think so, at Mesaba as I understand it only Line check airmen can sit right seat. They get captain pay and LCA overide for doing it. It might be just me but I think it sucks that they can get the open time from FO's... come on.. we're paid like chumps.. or is it chimps.... the least they could do is leave us what open time there is....

Ok so far we have

RAH - Yes
PDT - Yes
Mesa- Yes
Comair - Some restrictions
Compass - Yes
Mesaba - No
Horizon - No
Pinnacle - No


Express Jet -?
Commute Air - ?
Colgan - ?
Skywest -?
ASA - ?
Eagle - ?
Lynks - ?
Air Wisconsin -?
Go Jet -?
Trans State -?
PSA - ?
Great Lakes -?

I was being cute about the Comair Captains, I thought the jab at Mesa going TU was a give-away.

In reality, Comair doesn't allow Captains to fly in the right seat. The 36% figure is former Captains who've been displaced back to FO. It goes along with the 40% of our FOs currently on furlough.

Being owned by Delta... makes all the difference!

Haha...well add SkyWest to the "no" pile...we're qualified in one seat only (Check Airmen excluded, of course).

HAHA:D
filler for 10 characters

At eagle they can. The senior one is the PIC. Every 6 months captains do a V1 cut to a single engine landing from the right seat.

Trans States = No also

We get the joy of a downgrade to FO, and then the extra joy of seeing your pay cut in half....Ah, the dream.

No dice at AWAC, one seat qual'ed that's all.

colgan no, only check airmen can and i dont think it happens at all, except during a new capts ioe

ExpressJet CA's fly as FO's and the senior pilot will be listed as the captain. It beats more down grades.

It is funny though, that with over 300 pilots on furlough at xjt, the reserves are flying just under the 75 hour mark and yet they still have Capts flying as FO's, why not recall some of the FO's to help out a lil bit.

You're in the same state... reread the contract and try again when you can at least hit the same zip code.

A hint, the answer at Mesaba is a very limited yes, captains can be flown as FO (speaking non check airmen)

XJT staffs by the block hours and by total number of pilots XJT is "properly" staffed. Personally I would rather see CA's flying in the right seat other wise there would be more down grades and even longer to have people on the street.

No captain will sit right seat unless they have recieved the training and qualification at their last training event/recurrent. Lakes does it also.