Why pilots don’t start on long-haul
Why pilots don’t start on long-haul
It is a hard one to explain why pilots don’t start on long-haul as we think there are many reasons. Let’s start with defining long-haul. Most seem to agree long haul is flights of +8 hours duration. Due to flight time limitations, the crew will get off the plane after a long-haul flight.
Theoretically, you could (provided there is no authority restriction) go straight from flying school and fly long-haul. In practice, it doesn’t happen very often.
So let’s look at some likely reasons why pilots don’t start on long-haul.
Training sectors
When we talk about training sectors it is worth explaining what a training sector is. After you have had your commercial license your training never really stops. Every time you change employer or aircraft type you would be required to complete training sectors. This is sometimes referred to as “line training”. There are regulations about how many “sectors” (a flight from A to B) you need to complete. How many training sectors you need to complete is likely to be based on your experience levels. When we talk about experience levels it can both be linked to total hours and how many hours you have flown on a similar type of airplane.
- Low experience – many training sectors required
- High experience – few training sectors required
The number of training sectors required to train a low experienced pilot may be problematic on a long-haul setup due to how long-haul works.
How long-haul works
When you do long-haul you may do 2- 4 return flights per month, so that would be 4- 8 sectors. Imagine if you require 40 training sectors to complete your training (the number is just made up to have a working example). This could take 5- 10 months to complete. This may sound reasonable at first but let’s look at a comparison. Take short-haul (fx B737). Then you will most likely fly 2- 4 sectors per day. Flying short-haul the line training (the 40 sectors) can therefore be completed a lot faster.
Flying long-haul is often linked to prestige and higher pay
It could be that it is only the most senior (the ones that have served the longest time) in the company that have the “privilege” to fly the big plane.
Usually the bigger the plane the bigger the salary.
The high salary is likely to be popular, resulting in a lot of competition for the job. A competition the new in-experienced pilot is likely to lose.
If you would like to know more about pilot pay you can view our video below
The long-haul lifestyle can be popular
Lifestyle wise some might love long-haul, some might hate it.
Long-haul crew have “slings”. Sling is a term for a trip away from base over several days. Slings sometimes provide the crew with an opportunity to explore their destination and “do their own thing” with their time off. To have time off at destination is often referred to as layovers. In the beginning, long-haul will probably take you to places you have never been before but over time you may become very familiar with the various destinations.
On longer slings, you may end up adjusting your body clock to the time at the destination. This means going back to base your body will need to re-adjust to the local time zone. Working this way can cause tiredness. Depending on your own fitness, strategy to cope with timezone changes, night flights etc – you may be more or less affected by the long-haul flying.
Below is a video about favorite layovers.
What happens “down-route” is a chapter in itself. You can watch a youtube video below about what happens down-route.
The safety aspects of flying long-haul with low experience
Safety could also be an argument for not putting an inexperienced pilot on a long-haul operation. Long-haul pilots fly very few sectors. Therefore they complete very few take-offs and landings. This is probably not a good setup when you are trying to learn a new trade. In many cases, it would be better to do more frequent flying (more takeoffs and landings) first. Once you have got some experience under your belt, you may be better at coping with the long-haul type of flying.
Still, there are a few airlines that do use pilots with low experience on long-haul. Often the pilot with low experience will be a “cruise relief pilot”. This means the pilot will only be at the controls when the airplane is at its cruising level. The low-experienced pilot will not be in a pilot seat for takeoff and landing until he/ she has X amount of hours. The low-experienced pilots will train takeoffs and landings in a simulator environment until advancing.
If you feel you need a little help
Here you will find some free advice for a future pilot.
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Happy landings
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