Originally Posted by
4468
Combined with the unjustifiable system of Reserve Banding. On LH in particular, with the increasing uptake of PTWK, it can’t be long before we see every junior full time worker doing Reserve pretty much whenever they have a 28 day window? (Though I’ve a vague recollection you can’t be assigned Reserve in consecutive months??)
But what you described are exactly why joining as a direct entry pilot onto a longhaul fleet is not the be-all.
Joining as a DEP LH you are joining on a much more senior fleet where everyone joining the fleet, apart from a few new entry pilots recruited after you onto the fleet, will be more senior then yourself. Even pilots moving from SH to LH will be more senior then yourself. Blindlines, or under jss getting maximum optimalisation, are all you will be doing for up to 5 years (unless significant amounts of new recruits join behind you on the fleet).
On SH as a new entrent you should be able to climb the fleet seniority list by around 15 to 20% a year were as on LH as a new entrant because of the above you will be hovering at the bottom for the best part of the first 5 years. That is the beauty of a seniority based system were it doesn’t really matter if new pilots go directly onto LH bypassing SH. Once that SH pilot moves to LH (s)he will get the higher roster satisfaction.
(Before flying hours are mentioned as a right to bypass SH. On my SH joiners course the least experienced pilot had 3000 hours)
Also the SH pilots moving to LH will have done around 5 years in the company and thus get more points for a reserve period then yourself. Joining the fleet, you start with the fleet average reserve points, but will have to do more often a reserve period then the pilots 5 years and 10 years in the company. On SH you will find just a few pilots longer in the company then 5/10 years so most are in the same band resulting in having to do less reserves then the new entry LH pilot. One might argue this banding system is not fair but most join on SH and will have done a fair few reserve periods on SH which are much harder then a LH reserve.
Holiday and Xmas are based on a point system and are the same for SH and LH. You start off with 0 so run a fair chance of not getting your first 2 Xmasses off, after which you should be able to. Holidays are the same. If you take a peak week summer school holiday as your week off you get less points then a for a week in the middle of November. The more points you have the more likely you will get the holiday over a periond you bit for.