Atlas Duty Rig

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Quote: There is a thread in the Hiring section with all of the hiring information that you could ever need on Atlas. The latest is that hiring has stopped due to the remaining 747 Classics being parked.
Did several searches not much on detailed health insurance....
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Quote: I just finished a trip where we departed Europe mid afternoon flew into the setting sun, landed in the dark, sat on the ramp 3 hours, departed heading eastbound, flew into the rising sun and landed late afternoon. We blocked 15 hours and about 20 hours duty. This is not every day typical but does happen.
You flew a U.S. "turn" from Europe? Brutal.

How did you handle the crew. Did one pair fly one way while the other rested and vice versa or did you swap off during both legs?
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I was on the 744 for little over 2 years only, but I once did a DXB-HKG-DXB and came damn close to running out of our contractual duty time limit for a 4-man crew (20 hours)...

One Captain and FO flew it for the first leg, while the other Captain and FO were snoozing in the bunk...and myself and the second Captain flew it from HKG to DXB.

The only reason we were able to make the return trip was that the ground handling in Hong Kong is top notch...and gave us a 90 minute turn with a full upload of cargo.

We blocked 16 hours and 9 minutes...and just under 20 hours of duty for the day.

They stopped scheduling that paring soon after that...

That said, long days at Atlas are very common, but that one was very unusual since we have lots of crews on layovers, reserve, etc in both DXB and HKG. We do work long duty periods, but only to the extent that a crew change may not be possible. For example, we could certainly do (and have done on limited occasions) DXB-FRA-DXB, but the company schedules a crew change in FRA and we might go to the hotel, or we will DH back to DXB on the same aircraft...and btw, snooze all the way to DXB in the bunk!!

Snoozing for $$$ is a great thing...or at least, it was on the 744. Not so much on the 767
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The bunk is a great asset. The back of the upper deck is really two separate rooms with full length beds, pillows and blankets. It's not a cure all for fatigue, but it does help get quality rest. Unlike my previous international carrier where sitting upright in a coach seat was considered resting.
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20 hours pft...... when we double crew on the classic at K4.....its a 30 hour crew day..... just recently did a 27 hour.....4 leg.....13.6 hours of block with a double crew. argh.....
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Herc,

Basic crew...1 CA, 1 FO -- max block time 8 hours, max duty 12 hours
Augmented crew 1 CA, 2 FO -- max block time 12 hours, max duty 16 hours
Heavy crew 1 CA, 3 FO -- max duty 20 hours

Above are extendable by two hours by crew we agree to it...
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Yea... we have some long contractual days here...and frankly the classic probably gets the worst of it. Our normal day on the classic... (remember the FE augments the crew by FAA standards) is 16....extendable to 18... with no more than TWELVE hours in the seat. LOL... makes me tires to type it.
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One nice thing about the 400 at K4 is almost all of our flights are 3 man crewed. So even a 5 or 6 hour flight everyone gets some time out of the cockpit if the want it. Very civilized way to work. The classic guys get kind of screwed on this one.
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Quote: And they proceed to treat all of these costs as income and you get taxed straight off the top! Expect to lose 30% of yor income if you get stuck pulling R2. They won't tell you that in the interview....
While it is complete BS, it only applies when flying from home to base (or the other way) and sitting in base.

Do everything you can to avoid touching base, unless you leave, heavy crew, and they double you out in the middle of a pairing.
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