2. Standard operating procedures
2.1 Phase sequence
| Phase | Procedures |
|---|---|
| Preparation | Weather · runway · procedure · weight · performance · briefing |
| Start | Before start · pushback · engine start |
| Taxi | Taxi · line-up |
| Takeoff | Takeoff · thrust reduction · acceleration · clean-up |
| En route | Climb · cruise · descent |
| Arrival | Approach briefing · approach · stabilization check |
| Landing | Landing · roll-out |
| After landing | After landing · taxi in · parking · shutdown |
2.2 Preparation and briefing
The order is not arbitrary, and doing it out of order means doing it twice. Weather sets the runway. The runway sets the procedure. The weight sets the performance. Only once all of that stands is a briefing worth giving.
A departure briefing answers three questions:
- Where are we going
- What is different here
- What do we do when it goes wrong
The third is the one most often left out, and it is the one the briefing exists for.
A late loadsheet is not a formality. Takeoff speeds and thrust setting depend directly on weight. Two tonnes is not a rounding error — the numbers computed before it arrived belong to a different airplane, and they are recomputed, not adjusted by eye.
2.3 Taxi and line-up
Read back the route and every hold-short instruction verbatim. A read-back that drops the hold short is the read-back that leads to a runway incursion.
The transponder goes to its airborne mode when lining up — not earlier. Set too early, the airplane appears as an airborne target on the controller's display and can trigger alerts for other traffic. Lining up is the moment at which the display becomes true.
2.4 Takeoff
Climb away safely and get clean first, then reduce thrust. Reversing that order takes power away while it is still needed.
Shortly after lift-off the lever position hands over to an automatic mode. The FMA states it at the moment it happens, which is the reason to look up rather than to assume.
2.5 Descent and approach
"Descend via" means fly the published profile with all of its constraints. The altitude window is set at the given floor so that the automatics do not descend through an intermediate restriction on the way down.
An instrument approach is flown lateral before vertical, and the glideslope is joined from below. Configure too late and the approach will not be stable in time — which is the point at which it should be discontinued rather than rescued.
2.6 Frankfurt — LH Virtual
Read the heading. This manual serves three airlines, and this section serves one of them. LH Virtual's A32x fleet lives at EDDF, so for those crews the local rules are not an annex — they are the normal case. LX Virtual and BOX Virtual fly this type from their own bases, and nothing here transfers to them. No equivalent section exists for those bases yet; when one is written it goes beside this one, not over it.
What follows is the part of the EDDF aerodrome operating information that changes how you fly, not the part you read once.
Transition altitude is 5,000 ft. It sits below the 10,000 ft sterile flight deck point, which is the reverse of the order most reference material shows.
Departure
| Night | No takeoff or landing 2100–0500. Scheduled movements are not permitted at all 2200–0400; the shoulder hours need a Chapter 4 noise certificate and prior coordination. |
| Runway in use | Landing 25 is preferential. With 25 landing, departures north go 25C and departures south and east go 18. With 07 landing, departures go 07C except south and south-west, which go 18. |
| 07L/25R | Takeoff prohibited. Landing up to code letter E only. |
| Start-up | Contact Delivery. After a radio approval, push-back must be requested within 5 minutes; at roll-out positions, taxi clearance within 10 minutes. On datalink it is TSAT ±5 minutes. |
| A-CDM | Be on the Delivery frequency from TOBT onward. If you are not, the tower deletes your TSAT — not delays it. |
| De-icing | Request at TOBT −40 minutes. Later than TOBT −25 and you are fitted in around the flights that asked in time. |
| APU | On no earlier than 5 minutes before boarding starts; off at the end of deboarding at the latest. |
| Apron | Minimum power throughout. No significant thrust above idle in the cul-de-sacs or near buildings — A1, B10 and C2 are named specifically. Nose-in stands are left by towing; reverse is not accepted. |
Runway 18 has a wind problem worth briefing. With the wind between 160° and 200° at 15 kt or more, expect windshift and turbulence, with gusts and shifts that can reach a tailwind component. A tailwind above 10 kt is broadcast on ATIS — if you cannot take it, say so when you request start-up, not on the taxiway.
HIRO is in force and it has a cost if you are slow. Tell ATC the earliest intersection you can accept. If you are not ready to depart, say so unprompted: an aircraft that is not ready does not get line-up. After takeoff, accelerate promptly to the SID's published maximum, or to 250 kt below FL100 where there is none.
The SID is allocated by category, and a filed one gets changed without discussion. As a medium jet, northbound off 25C you are on WHISKEY if the aircraft meets the RNP-1 and RF-leg requirements and MIKE if it does not. Off 07, north and north-west is ECHO between 0600 and 2100, while north-east and east is DELTA. FOXTROT and GOLF belong to the twin heavies and are not ours. Between 2100 and 0600 the pattern changes again for noise.
Arrival
| Visual approach | Not permitted, except a runway change on final. |
| Runway | A and D STARs are guided to 07L/25R, B and C STARs to 07R/25L. Do not request a runway on the approach frequency. |
| Night | 2100–0400 expect an RNP X approach, and expect descent below FL70 only about 6 NM before the last waypoint. Manage speed for it and descend continuously. |
| Reverse | Idle reverse only, on any runway. The exception is a genuine safety case. |
| Glidepath | 07L/25R and all GLS approaches except 18 have both a 3.0° and a 3.2° path. The 3.2° is assigned under CAT I only. If you cannot fly it, tell Langen Radar on initial call. |
| PAPI | Usable only down to 200 ft above threshold on CAT I approaches. |
| LVP | In force at RVR 600 m or less. Under CAT III you may taxi only on taxiways with working centerline lighting. |
| Turn-off | Plan the rapid exit. A medium jet is expected off at L10 from 25C (1,700 m) or M17 from 25L (1,870 m). |
Crossing 07C/25C always needs an explicit clearance, and the stop bars on M6, M8 and M30 are monitored — cross one uncleared and bright red surface lights fire at you and the tower simultaneously. Stop, call, and wait to be told.
Where this comes from. The aerodrome operating information for EDDF, editions dated between November 2025 and May 2026. It is airport policy rather than airline policy, so it applies to everyone flying there — but it does change, and the chart set in the aircraft is the one that counts.
2.7 The flows
A checklist confirms. A flow is what it confirms. Between the two sits the part that actually configures the airplane, and it is done from memory against a scan pattern rather than read off a page.
Flows are triggered, not scheduled
Each flow has a trigger, and the trigger is a thing that happens rather than a time that arrives. That is what makes the pattern reliable when the schedule falls apart.
| Flow | Runs when |
|---|---|
| After start | The engine mode selector goes to NORM |
| After start checklist | The hand signal is received from the ground |
| Approach checklist | QNH is set |
| After landing | The spoilers disarm |
The trigger is the discipline. A crew that runs the after-start flow because it feels like the right moment will one day run it while an engine is still starting. A crew that runs it on the mode selector will not.
The roles change name partway through the flight
This catches people, and it is not pedantry.
| On the ground, before the takeoff clearance | CM1 and CM2 — left seat and right seat |
| From the takeoff clearance onward | PF and PM — flying and monitoring |
Before the clearance, the split follows the seat. Afterwards it follows the job. A first officer flying the sector is CM2 during cockpit preparation and PF from the clearance — the same person, two labels, and the flows are written against whichever one is current.
The checklists follow the same seam: the ground checklists are read by CM2, and from the approach onward they are read by the PM.
The shape of a sector
| Phase | Flow | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Briefing room | Technical log, routing, special ops, emergency briefing, weather, NOTAM, fuel | |
| On the airplane | Cockpit preparation — check before power-up, then power up, ADIRS align, fire tests | Cockpit preparation checklist |
| MCDU setup, EFB, preliminary performance, walkaround | Departure briefing · final loadsheet · final takeoff calculation | |
| Before start | Beacon, windows, doors and slides, thrust levers, park brake, fuel pumps | Before start checklist |
| After start | Trim, APU, anti-ice, spoilers, flaps | After start checklist |
| Taxi | Autobrake, squawk, radar, takeoff configuration test | Taxi checklist |
| Line-up | Approach path, runway confirmation, lights, TCAS, packs | Line-up checklist |
| After takeoff | Packs, and at flaps 1 to 0 the spoilers disarm | |
| Climb through 10,000 ft | EFIS, lights off | |
| Cruise | Terrain and alternate weather, fuel check every 20 minutes | |
| Before top of descent | Descent preparation | Arrival briefing |
| Descent through 10,000 ft | EFIS constraints, lights on, cabin advised | Approach checklist · landing checklist |
| After landing | Spoilers disarmed, flaps up, APU, radar off | |
| Parking | Park brake, engine masters, then beacon and signs once spooled down | Parking checklist |
Two details in that table are worth pulling out. The emergency briefing happens in the briefing room, before anybody touches the airplane — not on the runway. And the fuel check in the cruise has a number attached; a fuel check that happens when somebody remembers is not a check.
The approach sequence, and the one place the variants differ
Configuration goes in a fixed order, and the spoilers arm inside it rather than after it:
- Flaps 1 — exterior lights set; arm the spoilers here if they are not out
- Flaps 2
- Gear down
- Flaps 3, then flaps full
Variant. The latest flap setting at which the spoilers may still be armed depends on the airplane. On the A321 it is flaps 2. On the A319 and A320 it is flaps 3.
This is the first genuine variant difference in this manual, and it is the kind that catches a pilot moving between them: the sequence looks identical until the moment it is too late.
Refuelling
Fuel quantity is confirmed on the lower ECAM by both pilots and entered on INIT B. The seatbelt signs go on. The fuel pumps may then be switched on, and at the latest before engine start — that "at the latest" is the operative part.
Where this comes from. A flow reference for the type produced for flight simulation, based on the operator's practice. It has not been confirmed with a line pilot on the type, which puts it below the flight-deck material this manual's chapters 3 and 4 rest on. Where the two ever disagree, §0.5 applies and the flight deck wins.