Do a pilot and a co-pilot form a permanent team?

Question

Or does a pilot work with a different co-pilot for every new flight/ vice versa?

Thank you

Answer 1

At the airlines the captain and co-pilot may fly just one leg together or may fly all month long together. Each pilot has their own schedule and usually it is not the same due to vacation, sick calls, etc.

Answer 2

It depends on the airline.  Some airlines have month-long line schedules that have a pilot/co-pilot paired together for an entire month.  Other airlines have the pilot's and co-pilot's schedules independent of each other, and thus you may be flying with someone different every flight leg, day, trip, etc.  The last airline I worked for had a system where you were paired for an entire trip.  For example, if you had a 4-day trip, you were with the same person for 4 days.  Next week, it could be someone else.

The same goes for the flight attendants.  Some airlines have them completely independent of the pilots.  Others have the pilots and flight attendants paired for an entire month, while others do it on a trip basis.

Each system has its pros and cons.

Answer 3

No.

The checklists for airlines are written as a script. Each knows their role in the script. The script is rigid so that each pilot can work with any other pilot in the same airline.

Working with a pilot trained with a different airline would likely cause some difficulty, but the basics of each airplane are essentially the same, so as long as they were careful and double checked everything, there would likely be no problems.

Answer 4

No they do not. They may have to work with other pilots.

Answer 5

We are usually with the same crew for a trip.  a trip might be anywhere from 1 to 5 days at my company.  Some companies pair crews for a month.

Sometimes we change crews every leg.

The system is designed so that we all know the procedures intimately and all know our exact job duties and interchange of people it smooth and painless.

Answer 6

Rob G is right.  It varies from one company to another.  The majority simply assign crews on a flight-by-flight basis, so a Captain sits beside a given First Officer only for one leg of a trip, or for one day.  In general, the company assigns crew members according to the company's needs and policies, and you get whatever comes along.  Same goes for cabin crew.

But it works out.  Training is highly uniform, and procedures are as well.  So everybody always knows what to do.

Answer 7

They don't form a permanent team, but they do for as long as they are flying the same aircraft together.

Pilot Flying (PF) and Pilot Not Flying (PNF) is the modern term for pilot and co-pilot. The PF flies (obvious) whereas the PNF does the radios etc.

The PF and PNF doesnt necessarily mean Captain and First Officer, they usually alternate between PF one flight, PNF the next.