Originally Posted by
AIMINGHIGH123
Very well said.
The first few years SH does involve a bit of luck. A year in and I’m under 65% in RHS. I have just been fortunate in hundreds joined after me. People I know who joined 2018/19 had very little join after and were bottom of the list until late 2022 when recruitment went full steam ahead. Sometimes timing is everything.
Going forward if I go LHS or LH I know it won’t be like that.
That is definitely true. The same could be said about those who joined in 2008 and were stuck at the bottom through the financial crisis. But then we all know the biggest factor in terms of a career in aviation is luck, don’t we? All you can then do is work hard & try to make sensible choices which give you the best chance of benefitting. Those people who joined in 2008 are sitting pretty now.
One other final point worth making. Would it be nice if BA gave us a bigger pay rise? Of course it would. But actually who is the biggest enemy of new joiners on PP1 now? It is Jeremy Hunt & Rachel Reeves. Anyone joining on PP1 is almost immediately going to be faced with the £100k tax trap disaster which will be the limiting factor in terms of your take home pay. This is particularly true for anyone with kids who face a frankly ludicrous marginal tax rate once they tip over £100k. You can, of course, put the difference into your pension & don’t forget that pensions contributions are based on the 24PP scale for *all* BA pilots. This isn’t an argument against pushing for bigger pay rises - which ultimately benefit us all in the long run - but it is a big consideration in terms of financial planning.