Originally Posted by
RexBanner
Have you seen a junior LH roster nowadays? At least in the days of Bidline you had Seeded Blindlines and you could go somewhere decent and not work too too hard. Nowadays you can expect to pick up all the crap, with six trips with minimum days off in between. There’s guys now actively bidding for reserve because it gives them a better work/life balance, that’s saying something! Virgin fly 750 hours a year on a full time roster to our 900. That alone disproves your point. The case of the DEP who did a couple of months on the 787, took the type rating then buggered off to Virgin tells its own story.
Just for completeness, Seeded Blindlines were ONLY on the 747.....the other long haul fleets weren't so lucky. However when I joined on a LH Fleet Blindlines were pretty good and trading with EOT was very easy allowing me to totally rewrite my roster some months.
I'm currently about 2/3 down the P2 list on the 777.....rosters are manageable but under JSS I'm very realistic about what I can expect so bid accordingly. My real gripe at the moment is the number of weekends worked per annum which is ridiculous. In fact it's having a very serious impact on my family life. That said, I met a lovely bloke on my last trip who's just vacated the LHS of the Bus to return to the RHS on the triple. So short of moving to the RHS of the SH Bus and gaining a huge chunk of relative seniority I'm stuck with it. Hopefully the efforts towards getting a fairer balance of weekends off can be achieved soon!
As you say, stories of DEP's joining then swiftly leaving (I know of at least 2 other guys who've done the same) and people giving up a BA Short Haul Command to return to the RHS on a Long Haul fleet to regain some sort of life out of work says a lot!!! Pretty sad really isn't it.