Originally Posted by
Callsign Kilo
Can anyone explain how JSS was sold to the pilots? As it seems to me, BA had massive crewing headaches and wee unable to fill lines of work under Bidline; so JSS was mostly beneficial to rostering and crewing?
As you can probably tell, I’m not BA however the current system seems to be a real sh1tfest for junior crew. I realise pprune is far from a true reflection however there are some horror stories. I hope you make it bex88; look after yourself. I’ve felt how you’re feeling.
As I recall it..
1. Bidline was creaking very badly (hard to cover work with the establishment level BA were willing to support...which will open a whole other debate)..various sticking plaster solutions bring introduced such as the company placing extra work onto people’s lines at or just before final roster publication...causing much unhappiness.
2. Bidline technical support was due to end...(BA was supposedly the last or one of the last Bidline users)
....
Party line from the BACC seems to have become basically “we can’t continue to expend political capital and effort unconditionally defending the rostering system in it’s current form.”
Options were either a very changed Bidline light (can’t recall the details but intially at least you still bid for lines), or JSS, BA version.
BALPA published the pros and cons of each.....they may or may not have been entirely even handed and certainly some painted a very optimistic picture of JSS’s capabilities to produce bespoke rosters for everybody (oh and I think some weren’t far off claiming that on it’s off days the system would guarantee world peace and also produce a cure for the common cold).
There was also an element of “anything but Bidline” from a few members and so to a degree the BACC were pushing at a slightly open door. Some simply wouldn’t vote for anything tagged Bidline because it was “tainted” by the whole concept of seniority, and a belief, illustrated by what a junior pilot said to me at one point prior to the vote :
”at least if we get JSS it will stop the senior ****** getting all the time off they want and I’ll be able to get weekends off at last..”..
Well......we know how well that is working out...
Finally (and I think I remember this correctly) come voting time the BACC succeeded in muddying the waters by having a ballot which wasn’t just about the choice of rostering system, but also about choice of Flying pay either being paid by the hours actually flown or via a standard fixed allowance...in short:
Vote one way and get A + B...vote in the other way and you get C + D...
.....at least that’s my possibly controversial short take on it all.