Originally Posted by
pilotpete123
Does BA have a scheduling agreement with regards to how many days off you get between long haul trips? And if so, are the days off to EASA spec or are they slightly more generous, say, no report before 0700 local?
BA has Bidline rules (BLR)...or what is left of them after Balpa have granted a whole series of alleviations (the reasons why they did this are often debated, but the hard working Balpa reps believe that they had very sound reasons for doing so).
One good thing about BA is that your roster will not be changed without your consent once the final rosters have been published.
BLR requires 2 days off between LH flights, however 3 years ago a temporary alleviation was granted allowing BA to assign trips to EASA rules in some circumstances. This means that a trip with no EASA days off requirement could be assigned against your will that returns the day before a trip on your roster or more commonly there will be a gap of only 1 day between a trip on your line and a force assigned trip. An Africa and some Middle East trips trip have no days off requirement under EASA as there is no relevant time change, so back to back trips can be force assigned.
The recent discussion on this thread about the number of trips on a LH line is very important. 6 LH trips of 3 days will take a pilot above the required amount of work allowing the excess hours to be exchanged for money in subsequent months (or bidding to fly less in a subsequent month with the significant risk of being force assigned a trip because there is a gap on your line). The maths is simple: 6 LH trips of 3 days take up 18 days, the return sectors will include a fatiguing flight on the vast majority of occasions, the first day off at home the pilots feels like death, that is 6 more days, the following day the pilot feels like death warmed up, that is another 6 days. In a 30 day month there are no days off at home when the pilot feels fine. Add cumulative effects of repeated months with 5 or more trips and there is no lifestyle left and the pilot is wondering why he feels wound up like a taught bow and is shouting at his/her kids for no good reason. This also leads to being unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, despite being unbelievably tired.
The BA 747 Classic fleet proved that pilots can't endure the kind of roster that junior 747-400 pilots are now suffering. The Classic experience lead to the "5 trip rule" that Buter has quoted above, however this rule will not be incorporated in the new JSS rostering system that takes over from the January rosters.
There are BA 747-400 pilots in their mid-thirties who are unable to cope and have opted for part time. Sadly the company is unable to grant part time in many cases due to the extraordinary shortage of pilots.
BA has much to offer but the pilots work extremely hard. It is an incredibly profitable airline and this is not due to generosity to it's staff.