Cabin crew roster guide

What is a crew roster?

A crew roster is the schedule published by your airline showing your assigned duties for the coming weeks. It includes your flight duties, standby assignments, days off, training, ground duties, and any positioning (deadhead) flights. It is issued by crew scheduling - sometimes called crew control or crew planning - and is your authoritative source for what you are expected to do and when.

Rosters are typically published four to eight weeks in advance, though the exact window varies by airline and contract. Most airlines reserve the right to make changes within a defined notice period. Your roster is also the source data for your pay - duty hours, overnight counts, and per diem are all calculated from it. An error on your roster is often an error on your payslip.

Roster types: fixed, rolling, and bidline

Fixed roster. You have a set pattern that repeats each month. Common in smaller operators or where crew have reached a seniority level that grants pattern preferences. Predictable, but less flexible.

Rolling roster. Published for a set window and updated as that window rolls forward. Your schedule changes month to month based on operational needs and available crew. The most common format at large carriers.

Bidline system. Crew bid for a set of pre-built monthly patterns (lines) based on their preferences and seniority. The bidding system awards lines to crew in seniority order. Common in the US but less prevalent in European carriers. Some European airlines use a modified bidding system for days off or specific routes without publishing full bidline rosters.

Understanding which system your airline uses matters because it affects how far in advance you can plan, what flexibility you have to swap duties, and what protections apply if the airline changes your roster.

Roster codes glossary

Roster abbreviations vary slightly between airlines, but these are the most common codes you will encounter:

DHD / DH - Deadhead. Travelling as a passenger (usually in uniform) to position for a duty elsewhere. Does count towards FDP from your report time.

SBY / STBY - Standby. Generic standby code - check whether your airline splits this into ASBY and HSBY.

ASBY - Airport standby. You report to the airport and wait for an assignment.

HSBY - Home standby. You are on call from home within a defined notice period.

OFF - Day off. No duties. Not a rest period in the regulatory sense unless it falls within your required rest window.

REST - Rest period. Appears on some rosters to indicate a mandatory rest period rather than just an unrostered day.

SIM - Simulator. A training duty in a simulator. Counts as a duty period and generates FDP. May or may not generate per diem depending on your contract.

GRD - Ground duty. An on-ground duty such as training, briefings, or airport familiarisation. Counts as duty time. Check your contract for whether it generates overnight allowance if it is away from base.

LVE - Leave. Annual leave. Should not generate duty pay but does count towards your leave entitlement and holiday pay base depending on contract.

SICK - Sick leave. Triggers different entitlements depending on your contract and how long the absence runs.

Standby explained

Standby duties come in two forms: airport standby (ASBY) and home standby (HSBY). Both require you to be available to operate a duty at short notice, but they work differently.

On airport standby, you report to the airport at a specific time and remain available for the duration of your standby window. Your FDP starts at your report time, regardless of whether you are actually assigned a flight. If no flight is assigned by the end of your standby window, you are released - but the full standby period counts towards your cumulative duty limits.

On home standby, you remain at home (or within a defined travel distance of the airport) and must be reachable by crew control. Your FDP does not start until you are activated - that is, until you receive the call to report. Once activated, crew control must give you the minimum notice period specified in your contract or collective agreement before your report time. FDP then runs from that report time.

Both types of standby have implications for your rest before and after the duty. If your standby converts to a full duty, the rest period required after that duty is calculated from your actual release time, not from the end of your original standby window. See our guide on cabin crew standby rules for more detail.

UTC vs local time on your roster

Many airlines publish roster times in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), sometimes written as Z or Zulu. This is the same time zone regardless of where in the world you are operating - which makes it easy for scheduling systems but confusing for crew reading their roster.

To convert UTC to your local time, add your local UTC offset. In the UK: UTC+1 during British Summer Time (last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October), UTC+0 during winter. For other bases: Stockholm and Copenhagen are UTC+2 in summer, UTC+1 in winter. Dubai is UTC+4 year-round. Doha is UTC+3 year-round. New York (JFK) is UTC-4 in summer, UTC-5 in winter.

The most common mistake is forgetting to adjust for daylight saving time changes, particularly around the clocks-change weekends in March and October. If your report time looks wrong - unusually early or late compared to what you were expecting - check whether the UTC offset has changed since your roster was published. Read our full UTC to local time conversion guide for a complete table by base.

How to import your roster into Layvr

Layvr supports roster import from most major airline roster systems. Once imported, Layvr converts all times to your local time zone, calculates FDP for every duty, checks your rest periods, and estimates your pay based on your duty hours and overnight count.

To import: open the Layvr app, go to the Roster tab, and tap Import. You can connect directly to your airline's roster portal (where supported) or paste your roster data. Layvr parses the duties automatically and shows them in a timeline view scrolled to today.

FDP tracking and roster import are free for all crew. Pay estimates and payslip checking are Layvr Pro features. See the FDP tracker for more on how Layvr applies EASA limits to your imported roster.