Cool: ANA Pilots Can Now Fly Both Airbus A380 & A320

Interesting to hear from professional pilots here if they believe this is a good policy from the point of view of safety. Whilst double rating seems to be good on a day to day basis, I'd be concerned about reaction times during a "non-standard" or crisis situation. Thoughts?

While pay in the US is often tied to equipment, internationally this isn't always the case - some places, I don't know about ANA, it is solely seniority. This makes sense to me as a senior pilot shouldn't have to choose between pay and avoiding grueling long haul flights when they'd rather be home at night. This adds some flexibility.

I see absolute no issue to safety here. There are a bunch of operators doing MFF for 20-25 years now, mainly with 320 and 340/330 fleets (or nowadays also w the 350).
The flight deck commonality is huge, and more importantly the system philosophy is the same. zero issue here.

I'll pass. The differences are too great. Jumping from a 320 to a 380? No thanks. Even worse to be with both pilots going from one to the next. Again, no thanks.

Ben
Have you flown on ANA A380?

Just a minor note to your bullet points at the beginning. The A330 and A350 are not a common type rating. Two aircraft being able to have a common type rating goes far beyond simple cockpit similarities. Even then, the 330 and 350 cockpits are very different.

However, in the US, it’s only a very short transition course for a pilot of a 320, 330 or 340 to obtain a type rating in one of the other two (320 to 330 or 340 for example) due to cockpit and system similarities.

Isn't that dangerous? Won't the pilots be confused if they go back and forth different planes?

I think it's going to be quite challenging, the layout of the FCU and the philosophy is very similar, but it's different how both 320 & 380 operate, in the a380, tcas maneuver is automatic by design, the 320 is manual.
When you land the 320, you have to lower the nose slowly by yourself after you touch down on main landing gear, but the 380 does that automatically.
Ptich attitude during engine out is 12.5 degrees for 320, but 380 is lower.
Flare height is different.
All of the mentioned above is just a tiny sliver of the differences between the two types.

That's why I think it's a bit challenging flying both types back to back since all individual aircraft systems are different with different limitations.

Regards,
An A320 co-pilot

Sorry but it’s the same rating for 340/330/350.