A 'box payment' is a payment made for a long range sector. It is on a sliding scale and paid per sector. It ranges from about £100 for the lowest box up to about £220 for the highest box. BA defines a long range duty as 12.00hrs+ (night duty) or 12.5hrs + (day duty).
Handsolo::
Firstly, I have not missed out Virgin in my examples. The general consensus on many a pprune thread is that Virgin are pretty damn underpaid as far as airlines go, with many LCC and charter crews walking away with more at the end of the month.
How could you possibly compare VS route network to ours??. Apart from the 1 x daily NRT/HKG/PVG/DEL/BOM/SYD which they operate (with a MUCH higher ICC locally based crew ratio than us) all their flights are either straight down on westwards. So please, they have no where near the amount of east-west flying we do. BA eastwards: 3 x daily to HKG, 2 x daily to NRT, 2 x daily to BOM, 2 x daily to SIN, BKK, Syd, MEL, pakistan, more cities in india, nearly every city in the middle east.......
As for the difference in 'crew member down' payments. Perhaps that is why they often work a crew member down and BA DO NOT.
I know this because I am ex Virgin myself. We were always crew members down, running around like crazy trying to get the job done. Being nable to deliver what VS promises and also bear the brunt of the passengers dissatisfaction.
Since I have been on WW LHR (2.5 years) I have
never operated a crew member down.
And who benefits most for this? The customer! Have a look at the Skytrax website at airlinequality.com. Read the 'customer opinions' of both Virgin and BA and compare! When I was at Virgin we had some amazing crew but we could only do so much on the aircraft constantly working crew members down and receiving little rest and much disruption...all for peanuts!
Actually, the VS basic salary is quite a bit more than BA's now days although BA's allowences continue to be better.
You are very quick to point out
all the routes we get a 'Box' for. The double daily NRT (with 4 Japanese based crew) the 3 x daily HKG etc etc.
But you conveniently forget the 7 x daily JFK flights, the 4 x daily EWR flights, the 3 x daily ORD flights, the 3 x daily BOS flights, the 2-3 x daily MIA flights, the 3 x daily IAD flights, flights to philly/baltimore/detroit, 2 x daily YYZ/ the YUL, daily flights to nearly every city in the mid-east, double daily to BOM, delhi, islamabad, cairo, much of africa. Box payments are not paid. Now what do you think our rosters mainly consist of? SIN followed by HKG followed by NRT??? Think again!
Its more like JFK followed by DTW follwed by BOM followed by MAYBE the sniff of a Box 1 LAX or something.
As for
"I know this becuase they keep on asking me to slow down...." No we don't! We rather leave a fifteen minute delay to chance as we know soon as you guys are told you put your feet to the floor and speed up!
