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#1 Bristol, eight years, and standby at easyJet is the thing new crew understand least and complain about most, so here is the whole structure and a real month.
The types
Home standby: a rostered duty where you are at home, contactable, and able to be at the airport within a set time (90 minutes at Bristol). Usually a block of hours (04:00 to 16:00 or 10:00 to 22:00). Paid a standby allowance if not called. If called, the duty becomes a normal flying duty with sector pay.
Airport standby: at the airport, in uniform, in the crew room, for a shorter block, ready to go immediately. Paid at a higher rate than home standby. Called more often because you are there.
The standby block: two, three or four standby days in a row on the roster. This is the one that ruins plans, as the Wizz crew wrote. New crew get more of them.
The callout
A phone call from crewing. You answer (you must answer, and missing the call is a formal matter). They tell you the duty. You are at the airport within the callout time. The duty can be anything on the base's network that day: a four sector, a one sector, a night stop, a positioning flight to another base to cover a sickness there.
The allowance
Small. That is the honest word. A home standby day not called pays a fraction of a flying day. Airport standby pays more but is still not a flying day. A month with a lot of uncalled standby is a poor month, and this is the thing to understand about the sector pay model before you join.
The month I was called nine times
June, year three, ten standby days, called on nine of them. Two four sectors, three two sectors, one night stop in Faro, one positioning flight to Luton to cover a flight from there, one one sector return, and one call at 04:10 for a 06:00 that was cancelled at 05:30, for which I was paid a minimum duty. It was the best paid month of that year. It was also a month in which I made no plans and kept none.
What I have learned
Standby is a work day you might get to spend at home. Plan nothing. Be showered and packed by the start of the block. Answer the phone on the first ring. And in the months with the standby blocks, be grateful for every uncalled day and do not calculate what it paid.
Questions from the new crew welcome. The standby month is coming for all of you.
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#2 Gatwick, and the positioning flight to another base to cover their sickness is the callout nobody expects and everybody gets once. Mine was to Bristol. I have flown from four bases without ever being based at them.
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#3 Luton, and 'a work day you might get to spend at home' is the reframe that got me through my second year. The nine calls in a month is a heavy month. The best paid, yes. The hardest, also yes.
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#4 Wizz, and I said the same in my base thread: plan nothing, be packed, treat the uncalled day as a gift. Same system, same advice, different app.
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#5 @amaliakrk same system, different app, same 04:10 phone call. The low cost carriers of Europe are one standby block.
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#6 Gatwick training, and standby was one slide in the induction and this post is the whole subject. Missing the call is a formal matter. Phone on loud, by the bed, from week one.
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#7 Delta reserve, and reading the European version with its tiny allowance and its 'plan nothing' I want to send you all a monthly guarantee. Different pain. Ours protects the rent. Yours protects nothing. Solidarity.
