Pilot ill, cost of replacement???

markelock

Our flight from Budapest to Luton was delayed by over 3 hours recently because of staff illness.

When it arrived, it transpired that the pilot had been taken ill, and a replacement found, and taxi'd(?) from his base in Newcastle to Luton for the outbound flight.

Because I'm child-like in my desire to understand things, does anyone know the costs associated with this?

I was under the impression that the pilot was a contractor rather than an employee of Easyjet, although I may be wrong.

M4RKM

at least they didn't do it the ryanair way and left you at budapest and not ran the flights, blah blah blah..


taxi from newcastle to luton.... about £300/£350 i'd say...

bagand96

I imagine it would have been easyjet crew; strange that they couldn't have found one closer, but maybe they were just having a bad day and that was the nearest crew member. Cost to easyJet? A taxi from Newcastle to Luton can't have been cheap!

Airline crews do standby duties where they will be paid to be available, and then if they actually get called to fly they get paid more (i don't know the actual amounts). There are usually two types, airport and non-airport, airport being where the crew report the airport and sit there, may get called may not; non-airport being where they have to be available but can stay at home (think airport standby's are more of a cabin crew thing). Like I said not sure on the amounts, but think they are a nice little earner for the days off!

Regards contractors. Some airlines do employ contract pilots, however they will fly for that airline all the time. It is not like a pilot can advertise themselves as having an Boeing 737 license and be called on by any airline. Yes they have the license, but all airlines have different procedures, may have different equipment etc etc that a pilot needs to be conversant in. Can't just cal "rent a pilot" when you need to....

moonrakerz

markymoo wrote: »

at least they didn't do it the ryanair way and left you at budapest and not ran the flights, blah blah blah..

...and hit you with a £10 "taxi surcharge" !

GH

bagand96 wrote: »

I imagine it would have been easyjet crew; strange that they couldn't have found one closer, but maybe they were just having a bad day and that was the nearest crew member. Cost to easyJet? A taxi from Newcastle to Luton can't have been cheap!

Airline crews do standby duties where they will be paid to be available, and then if they actually get called to fly they get paid more (i don't know the actual amounts). There are usually two types, airport and non-airport, airport being where the crew report the airport and sit there, may get called may not; non-airport being where they have to be available but can stay at home (think airport standby's are more of a cabin crew thing). Like I said not sure on the amounts, but think they are a nice little earner for the days off!

Regards contractors. Some airlines do employ contract pilots, however they will fly for that airline all the time. It is not like a pilot can advertise themselves as having an Boeing 737 license and be called on by any airline. Yes they have the license, but all airlines have different procedures, may have different equipment etc etc that a pilot needs to be conversant in. Can't just cal "rent a pilot" when you need to....

WRONG WRONG WRONG. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Please do not post stuff like this unless you are completely sure of your facts because it is incorrect , misleading and leads to people making wrong assumptions.

Voyager2002

GH wrote: »

WRONG WRONG WRONG. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Please do not post stuff like this unless you are completely sure of your facts because it is incorrect , misleading and leads to people making wrong assumptions.

OK, wise one, please tell us the true position.

GH

Voyager2002 wrote: »

OK, wise one, please tell us the true position.

I do not claim to be wise. However , I do not post so called factual information on a public site unless I am 100% sure of my facts which means that if it's outside of my professional expertise I will keep my mouth shut. As one who works in the airline industry I do , in this case , have intimate knowledge of the facts. I am not posting them on here but please do not try to make out that I am being "wise" by correcting the mistake of someone who clearly , by the contents of his post , has less knowledge.

Moonchild

GH wrote: »

WRONG WRONG WRONG. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Please do not post stuff like this unless you are completely sure of your facts because it is incorrect , misleading and leads to people making wrong assumptions.

I'm intrigued as well!

Although i'd have it as 'Partly Correct', 'Partly Correct' and 'Slightly Less Correct' I didn't see anything offensive in someone trying to help, and i'd certainly not try to dissaude conversation. I mean, are you convinced every thread you have posted is 100% correct? Really?

If you're going to post so, please actually take the time to correct them. And then we can easily dig out some bigger pedants to shoot you down in flames, i'm sure.

Paddy2eyes

GH wrote: »

I do not claim to be wise. However , I do not post so called factual information on a public site unless I am 100% sure of my facts which means that if it's outside of my professional expertise I will keep my mouth shut. As one who works in the airline industry I do , in this case , have intimate knowledge of the facts. I am not posting them on here but please do not try to make out that I am being "wise" by correcting the mistake of someone who clearly , by the contents of his post , has less knowledge.

Well would you care to point out what parts of the previous post were incorrect?

Moonchild

GH wrote: »

I do not claim to be wise. However , I do not post so called factual information on a public site unless I am 100% sure of my facts which means that if it's outside of my professional expertise I will keep my mouth shut. As one who works in the airline industry I do , in this case , have intimate knowledge of the facts. I am not posting them on here but please do not try to make out that I am being "wise" by correcting the mistake of someone who clearly , by the contents of his post , has less knowledge.

Actually, i'm an A380 pilot, and you're wrong.

I also invented the question mark.

That's the great thing about internet forums eh, unless you can back up statements with facts?

GH

markelock wrote: »

Our flight from Budapest to Luton was delayed by over 3 hours recently because of staff illness.

When it arrived, it transpired that the pilot had been taken ill, and a replacement found, and taxi'd(?) from his base in Newcastle to Luton for the outbound flight.

Because I'm child-like in my desire to understand things, does anyone know the costs associated with this?

I was under the impression that the pilot was a contractor rather than an employee of Easyjet, although I may be wrong.

In a nutshell , the costs of getting the pilot from Newcastle and back taking into account any accommodation expenses that may have been incurred as well would have meant that the flight would probably have made a loss. The alternative however would have been to cancel the flight at great inconvenience to over a hundred passengers. Make what you want of the carrier's attitude to its obligations in this case.Hope this helps.