Originally Posted by
pilotpete123
What will happen to crews as the 747 is withdrawn? Could someone join on the fleet and then be directed to any fleet without any consultation? I understand that during your fleet freeze you can be directed to any fleet but obviously this is more relevant on the 747.
I joined onto the 767 as a rated DEP. As you may know, the 767 fleet has recently been retired so I (and others) faced a bit of an uncertain future when we entered official run down. During your initial 5 year engagement freeze the company can pretty much do what they like with you so we did have fears that we would be directed somewhere we didn't want to go, in our case that was SH Airbus. And tbh there's nothing we could have done about it (except bid off as unfrozen ASAP). Thankfully we were all given the opportunity to submit an aspirational bid in the usual way and were then processed accordingly.
Within reason we all got what we asked for or very close to it. The junior guys including me have largely ended up on the 777 and are very happy chappies after what has been a pretty awful couple of years for those at the bottom. Having done it once, I would avoid a dying fleet as far as humanly possible but I'm sure others will back me up when I say just get in, get your number and bide your time. The jumbo is the next to go but its a while off yet and it won't endure the same short haul pain the 767 did in its final 2 1/2 years.
Happy New Year all!