Terms and EndearmentThe forum the bean counters hoped would never happen. Your news on pay, rostering, allowances, extras and negotiations where you work - scheduled, charter or contract.
I would appreciate any info. from GB flightdeck on quality of life issues. i.e. please not the usual crew room bitching that we all do, but a real impression of what they're like to work for. Things like management attitudes, roster stability, short-notice changes, requested days off etc. Also, how's time to command?
Any genuine, constructive comments gratefully received.
Thanks.
I hope you enjoyed last week's special chump-end, Norris.
Well, if you must know! I work for one of the charter airlines, on the airbus and am getting fed up with the night flights and ******ing around that we get. GB looks a good place, and wondering whether it was the poor mans BA - which would be better than where I am now!
Hope this expanation gets some positive responses.
I do understand your reticence in view of Danny's warning at the bottom of the page. However, this is a genuine request for your honest impressions to help inform the decision over a possible job offer.
Chaps...you could do an awful lot worse. Put it this way - I really look forward to going to work. The people are friendly and helpful (in the main!) roster stability is good and you get the occasional nightstop. Like any other company, there are good bits and bad bits, but IMHO the good outweighs the bad significantly.
I'm happy at GB and can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be at the moment. There's virtually no night flying other than a couple of arrivals after midnight, and nightstops are about 1-2 nights per month, at the moment Marrakech for the Airbus and Valencia for the 737 although in the last few years we've stopped at Lisbon, Porto, Malaga and Faro. Rosters are pretty good compared to what I've heard of other companies and time to command seems about 3 years although a lot of people have joined in the last 18 months.
Simon Z - GB is not a poor man's BA. The biggest difference being that you are person in GB, not a number. The airline has a history going back 70 years, is profitable(and has been for about 8 years), even in the year up to Apr02, and staff will get a small profit share this July. The owners are a Gibraltarian family, who do not need to over react to city accountants and other wizz kids worried about share prices. When times are hard they have to be fairly tough on the budget - that's a good thing. This family makes more money in a bad year than they could ever hope to spend on themselves in a lifetime. They run the company, and their other companies, for the medium to long term. The result for people who choose to work for them: - a pleasant place to work, excellent colleagues, fair rates of pay and excellent roster stability.
The above is a huge difference to what I read about GB about 2 years ago; Together with what they told me at the interview, (up to 7 years to command, very few night stops), I said I'd be better of where I was.
Has the slippery one's hiss tuned out to be worse than his bite?
My 'ex' worked for GB and loved the people at GB, BUT there were lots of night stops and every standby got converted to a 3-day Marrakech or Faro or something (I was cabincrew with another LGW charter so I know the truth). He still gets annoyed by BA guys who jumped the seniority queue to command. Will this happen again when BA give GB more routes AND captains? Most trainers were nice guys with the odd real "a****ole" who chopped 4 or 5 FOs on command courses - why not fly for an airline who wants you and pays better!! = easy or GO!!
