Meet airline pilots Marjolein and Norbi
Find out what Marjolein and Norbi do as Captain and First Officer for British Airways.
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My name is Marjolein van Deth and I am a Captain on the A320 for British Airways, based at Heathrow.
When we first start flying, the skills that we need the most are probably quite basic skills, like learning how to fly the aircraft, learning all the technical aspects of the aircraft. And then when we progress throughout our career, especially when you become a Captain, it becomes a lot more about managing things.
So as a Captain, we learn how to manage a flight, how to manage the cabin crew, how to manage the passengers, and also emergency situations. So we practice that in the simulator every six months.
Norbi: My name is Norbi and I'm a First Officer here at British Airways operating on the Airbus A320 family aircraft.
So my day would start approximately an hour before the flight where I’ll meet the captain, the crew. And here we’ll discuss the flight's itinerary. So we'll discuss flight times, fuel, weights and any weather on routes. We'll go over and meet the cabin crew, discuss passenger clientele, flight times, duration of the flights. Then on, we'll make our way to the aircraft as a team, and we'll conduct flight preparations. For me, this will involve setting up the aircraft, setting up the flight computer.
Marjolein: People always ask us how much flying we actually do. So airplanes can't take off automatically yet. So that's all done by us. And then at some point after departure, we can manually fly it for as long as we want, but quite often we put the autopilot in which is over there, and then that will do quite a lot of the work for us, which is nice, but we still have to be there obviously telling the autopilot exactly what to do.
We talk to air traffic control, we look at the route, we look at weather, we look at terrain. We’re always thinking about plan B, so what are we going to do if this happens or that happens?
Norbi: The job is very dynamic, so it can change very suddenly. So we have to be ahead game and be prepared for anything.
Morjolein: Being calm, being able to think methodically.
Norbi: It's how we interact with people, is very much a people jobs. And I think many people don't often realise that. It’s how we interact with our colleagues, our ground staff, our passengers.
Marjolein: The views are incredible. As soon as we take off, it's a grey, rainy morning at Heathrow and we take off and we climb through the cloud and we're up in the sunshine at 35,000 feet, enjoying the views. It's, it's really, really amazing.
Norbi: Just the idea that I, every input that I make impacts the aircraft trajectory. And once it lands on the ground, it gives me goosebumps every time. It gives me goosebumps talking about it now. It's the most remarkable feeling every day and it just never gets boring.