Originally Posted by
Enzo999
As for joining BA I would say if your ambition is to be a LH SFO for at least 20 years and you don’t mind not seeing your family for the first 5..
I indentify with your post and found it interesting. Just a point I think worth highlighting. I’m junior LH. Just a point of fairness to senior LH in trying to be representative in what I’ve noticed.
For folk looking in from the outside, CAP doesn’t drop as you become more senior. There’s no senior full timers flying 3 short trips a month for example. Chatting to friends outside of it this misconception does seem to exist - “get in a few years and write your own roster” type of gig.
Previously under the old (bidline) system you could bid for lines that had a higher amount of credit efficient trips. These type trips involved more hours over a shorter time frame. But this is in context. You can only work with what’s provided by BA on the dinner plate. Granted, you have more control the more senior you are, and JSS is being watched with interest to see how this is affected once the line system disappears.
The ability to afford part time on PP24 aside, I’ve rarely seen full time senior LHs who are away a huge amount less from home than the juniors. Many still have the trip/2 day off/trip rash somewhere on a leave free line on my fleet. Granted they might fly to less unpopular places and have a couple of weekends off. But only they can answer whether that’s a tradable commodity with how bushed they are overall. That many are going for part time would say otherwise.
Certainly FA and problems with using bank, have caused dismay from everyone. I mentioned in a previous post, and certainly seems to have been highlighted by a couple of retired posters - that when the agreements were forged, the system worked due to the then landscape of the BA operation. BA, naturally doing what businesses do have prodded and poked around, discovering chinks in the armour, elegantly finding work arounds to exploit naively created thin walls and side effects of the system.
A new rostering interface could be (I say could be, I don’t know) well placed to push further against these weak areas of the bidline rules. Just like any business, they will do what money makers will do. I’ve alluded to some of my personal opinions - I think this new efficiency is highlighting fundamental issues in the industry rather than my fixating and targeting my opinions solely at company level.
I think it quite telling that part time is something highly sought, not just in BA. This fact completely disarms a company convincingly asserting aircrew are money driven entities using lifestyle as a bargaining chip. Quite the opposite, it starkly tells a different story. Fatigue and well being aren’t tradeable with income and that many are being forced to forgo one for the other points - to me - at the trajectory and current state for aircrews to find such lack of protection they’re being forced to try and mitigate the affects themselves.
I always have to remember there’s plenty of folk who’ve never worked outside of BA and until recent years perhaps limited experience of what life is like when you butt up against the unsavoury ramifications of “efficient” FTL construction. At that point do you target your dismay with the local rules or with the regulations that allow these practices? I’d argue for long term protection of aircrew wellbeing you have to tackle both - two pronged. At the local coal face level and also at the wider mother hen level.