BA TSG Engineers

[Dud]

Noticed BA are advertising "again" for Technical Support Engineers - What's going on? Are the pay and conditions not adequate? I would presume these positions would normally be filled internally?? Seems like a logical step for a LAE getting tired of the cold/wet weather....

Any thoughts??

[yotty]

Not sure about pay and conditions, though these post are probably TMG. More likely due to the incorporation of 787 & A380 into BA's fleet! This is a big worry for senior management.

[TURIN]

An LAE can earn far more (with O/T) than any TMG Eng ever will.

[Dud]

TURIN- so TMG pay wouldn't entice LAEs - why aren't people externally taking the position? They've advertised twice now??

yotty - so extra people for the A380 and B787 (or maybe no B787). Not many people with A380 and B787 experience. Do you think pay and conditions may not be adequate to entice the people they want??

What's the worry with senior management - the fact they are merging two aircraft types into the fleet ( I'm sure the B787 issues are causing all sorts of headaches) or getting people with the right qualifications and experience to handle the fleet migration???

[Blink182]

Any more tinkering ( downgrading ) of Pension entitlement and a whole tranche of very experienced people will head for the exit.....the bosses and senior team are extremely worried.

[spannersatcx]

no advert on the BA website?

[chest rockwel]

Go to ba's mro website, they have made a separate one recently for engineering

[MAC 40612]

Dud wrote:

Noticed BA are advertising "again" for Technical Support Engineers - What's going on? Are the pay and conditions not adequate? I would presume these positions would normally be filled internally?? Seems like a logical step for a LAE getting tired of the cold/wet weather....

Any thoughts??

Well, as some of the other answers have stated...

TSG are all TMG grade (Technical Manager Grade)...so all the hassle of management grade without any real perks...so hence not many takers internally..To give you some insight into the TMG grade, BA introduced an Engineering AMS grade (Aircraft Maintenance Supervisor) grade, which is a TMG grade (above LAE) to be basically a single person in overall charge of an aircraft. The combination of a lack of clear definition of the role (different areas use AMS in different ways...with some it is purely office based, others out on aircraft, others running gangs like LAEs) and the extra hassle of the role means on the whole it has been a bit of a disaster. The only increase the early people who went into the AMS role got over an LAE was a 5%. People who go into the grade now are expected to do the job for only a 2% increase or 0% above an LAE...the justification being that there is more to the role than money..

Getting back to support /TSG roles...

You are expected to put in long hours (no overtime payments...TOIL if you ever manage to take it!), work shifts (including nights) to support the operation (you do get shift pay...but BA shift pay has fallen behind what many other companies pay)

Being in the TMG grade can mean two people doing the same job will be getting in many cases massively different rates of pay.

The TMG grade band of pay is not even published anywhere and many people who are interviewed for TMG grade jobs do not even know what they are going to be offered until they are actually formally offered the job. [They will always try to get you in as cheaply as possible by enquiring what salary you are currently on and what are you expecting to earn]...

Even if people are taken on at a higher level of salary and are really good at their job, very few ever get more than an average increase/bonus, if anything at all.

You have to go on many managerial/company type "brainwashing" courses many of which are of no benefit to you in your job

The Company pension for anyone joining from outside now, is basically c**p

You have to achieve various KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] through the year. This reflects on how much increase/bonus you might get. I say might because even if you achieve them you may not get the increase/bonus as they all have to be reviewed further up the managerial chain and there is only a certain size "pot" so if another TMG area has put in a better case for their people they may get a bigger share leaving not a lot/nothing for you or your area.

If you have two years running where you fail to meet your KPIs you contract can be terminated..

Also in TSG (as elsewhere in BA Engineering) there is a very high age demographic, as until about 2-3 years ago BA Engineering had a complete freeze on recruitment and now it is starting to get critical as a large amount of experienced staff will be leaving the business in a relatively short time period. The company only woke up to this fact recently and although there has been recruitment in the last few years, most of the staff recruited into support TMG type roles have been Engineering Graduates [nothing wrong in that I might hasten to add] but for the vast majority of them the most aircraft experience they have had is six months going around various shop floor areas.

Some of the answers have said the company are concerned with the introduction of two new aircraft types, and yes of course they are as any company would be. The present fleet, especially long-haul has a problem with TDRs and the high level of ADDs, is caused by the fact of operating an increasingly ageing long-haul fleet (BA probably flies the largest/oldest B747-400 fleet of any airline in the world now) not forgetting a fleet of old B767s and a fleet of some of the earliest B777s. Now I'm not saying for a second that all these aircraft are not safe, I'm just saying keeping an ageing fleet airworthy for the amount of flying BA does takes a massive amount of resources and the senior management just do not seem to get it. Many of their decisions seems like firefighting, making BA engineering in general, not a pleasant place to work in recent years...

As was also stated many LAEs can [and do] earn more than TMG grades without half the hassle...

You have really got to ask yourself, why is the biggest airline in the UK having trouble recruiting the staff they need??

Finally, not that long ago they were advertising for Powerplant support engineers. They finally found a suitable candidate and contacted him with the job offer. He got in contact and thanked them for their offer but said he would have to decline as the starting salary was only about half of what he was currently earning!