JB737,
The system we use at BA for bidding is called 'Carmen'.
It is a Swedish designed system, and is in use with a number of airlines incl. SAS,Northwest,Alitalia,Phillipine Airlines,Finnair,Iberia & Condor.
Within BA it is currently only used by EF cabin crew, but will be implemented on WW from next year I believe.Our pilots use a totally diffrent system.
It works on a fairly straight forward principle.Basically you have to give each thing you bid for (either days off or trips) graded points from 0 to 200 depending on the level of importance you want to place on the thing your bidding for.
For example if you primarily want to have n/stops in Istanbul,you would give this bid 200 points,and then if you also wanted to have n/stops in Milan but were'nt quite as bothered you would give this for example 180 points and so on.This points system is also what we use to bid for days off.
You can also put in bids for any trips(including turn arounds)with/without being specific about the destination or number of days.You can also specify the check-in/out times and the number of sectors you wish to do.
You can also place a "standing order" if you want to do the same types of trips every month, and you can do this up till the day you retire if you really want to!!
We would normally expect to achieve around 60% of our bid, and the remaining 40% will be rostered to you by scheduling prior to the roster being published on the 21st of each month or thereabouts.
When the system was first introduced at LHR there were of cource teething problems, however most people seem to have got the system working to there advantage now.
My advice to anyone using the 'Carmen' system is NOT to be to specific about the kind of trips you want.
I normally just ask for ANY 3 day trips, as these are where the money is to be made.The more speciffic you are the harder it will be for the system to satisfy your bid,and in the worst case it may end up not giving you anything you bid for.
Hope this info helps answer your question.
Birds2Perches,
I am led to belive that BA will not make any exception on the question of exam certificates.
They are now, I believe, turning people away at the interview stage if they do not have the required exam results and original certificates to prove it.
If you don't have these it will probably be a waste of your time to apply, as they are'nt budging on this one.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's the story as far as I know.
gladrags
