Originally Posted by
Treestripe
I’ve been at BA 1 year 5 months now. In that time 300 DEPs have been recruited behind me on the 320 fleet so I’m 50% on the seniority.
This month and last month I’ve been working 6 on, 2 off pretty consistently. Actually one month recently I worked 6 days of reserve, 1 day off 6 back on.
The irony is, I lived in in Italy before for low cost, and commuted home on a 5/4 full time roster. I spent more time with my partner in the U.K. then, and we live together now. My social life is non existent atm.
What worries me now about my choice to move to BA is that I regularly fly with people in the LHS who have been in company 10+ years and are so annoyed they still can’t get weekends off to be with their family. Their seniority is >70% on fleet after a decade and they don’t know what to do about it other than apply for part time.
So options now, go longhaul. That’s why I wanted to come. However it doesn’t look roses there. 5.5 trips a month from what I see with 2 days off inbetween but at least less time at Heathrow. The other option is go part time to gain some normality in my 30s. But I feel I shouldn’t have to go part time to live a normal life. Last option is to do what a good handful including one of my joining coursemates has already done and leave.
I really was happy about joining BA in the beginning, despite a really shambolic onboarding process, I enjoyed the first few months of new countries, a handful of nice hotels and I once got upgraded on a long haul holiday. Now I’ve realised how it’s impacted my life and I don’t see it changing. New joiners won’t move up the list as fast as I have so will be stuck at the bottom for a while and they will be short for a long time.
it’s so antiquated now that I think there’s a problem, how can they convince the guys and girls of Ezy etc to give up fixed pattern, the ability to plan your life for the year, regional bases, decent money etc, to come to a place so complex with the promise of weekends off once in a while somewhere in the future and to spend most of your life away in the meantime.
Give it proper consideration, I did. I’m hoping for the long run, but starting to lose hope when people after 15 years feel trapped. I wonder if I’d got my command at previous and part time how much more simple life would be.
I declined the offer in the end because I went on a trip with my partner, and got the chance to speak to the flight crew about rosters, work life balance, salaries etc so I ran a mile. I compared everything and felt it wasn’t worth the pay cut.
Plus, I witnessed some improper conduct during the recruitment process that I felt it was unfair and unprofessional. I asked the chief of pilot recruitment about it so we could have a chat and she never replied. So I told them to stick it and looked elsewhere. The process is biased, that’s all I can say here.
It is not what people think, if you want to tell people down the pub you fly for BA, then great. But they own you, say goodbye to social Life. I had a look at both shorthaul and longhaul Airbus and Boeing rosters. They work harder for less money, into LHR which is stressful too.