Originally Posted by Banzai Eagle
why o why won't Pilot Managers and HR Departments switch onto the fact that when recruiting Pilots they need to look at home addresses to base offered as well as types of aircraft / pilots hours / how they did at interview etc.
What you are suggesting is the ideal. Nobody is obliged to accept a job offer at a base that is not their first choice. By nature the 'less desirable' bases are going to have fewer applicants to move there. The company offers the job at the base where the vacancy exists. If someone does not wish to accept that offer, they could turn it down. Trouble is this tells the company you want the base more than you want them, so if perhaps a rival company was to offer you that base you would probably accept it. It is a two way street in a company like Thomsonfly; The vacancy is at xxx base and you are offered it. You make an informed choice to accept the offer, get a start date, draw a salary, contribute to a pension, get the permanent health insurance and loss of licence insurance, free uniform
, drinks and meals, top quality training and experience, knowing that there is a system in place for you to request your base of choice and that place is allocated in seniority and vacancy order. Nothing could be fairer, remember, the job is only being offered because the vacancy exists at that particular base. The system is the same for everyone. A point worth noting is that if LGW or MAN are your preferred choice you will
probably have a shorter wait to get that position due to their size and hence turnover of pilots. Smaller bases
tend to be manned by pilots who indeed do want to be there, so there is less movement once the music has stopped and everyone has grabbed their seat.
Shortcut,
Do you think the 757 rosters would make it feasible to actually commute up to Newcastle using BA flights, making use of the occasional B&B up there?
You will find that you will be contractually bound to live within 75mins of your base. This is for stanby duties etc, which incidently are allocated through a bid system (a week at a time), so you can bid in advance and know some time ahead when you are going to have that week. Most F/Os don't actually bid for them and just take what is allocated (it's not many), so if you were to bid you would pretty much be guaranteed to get what you ask for.
This doesn't mean you can't commute, merely you need an address where you can stay to fulfil your contractual obligation. Many guys have in the past lived further away and then driven to a service station within 75mins for the start of their standby; certainly not something I would ever consider, but shows what a bit of lateral thinking and flexibility can achieve. IMHO th ebest thing to do would be to get a room for rent; plenty of crew rent them out, and stomach the cost to have it always available when you are in NCL. If you are going to be there say 3 nights a week the cost would not be much more than a B&B.
Good luck.
PP