Life at BA
After a long absence from pprune in my boredom while downroute with my octogenerean crew I came across this thread and thought it was time to come out of the shadows and make my first posting on pprune.
I've been in BA for just over a year now, on the B777 and thought I'd add my views to some of those expressed here as regards life in Big Airways.
OK... well first the good points in my opinion. Job security has to be among the very best there is in the UK. The route network is superb and growing rapidly though with my seniority the same destinations (mainly east coast US) have a habit of repeating. Opportunity to do long and short haul in your career if thats what you want to do. Personally it seems to me that the majority of people on shorthaul Airbus are making the jump to longhaul as soon as they can due to working like dogs, 800hrs+ seems the norm for those guys. Everything is generally well organised, at least in terms of previous airline experience though of course the occassional cock up does occur. Bidline can be very good in terms of determining getting your days off when you want.
Downsides... time to command... current estimates for a long haul command range from 16-20+ years. Workload, at BA there is a system based on hitting a set number of hours and if you don't then you have pay deducted to cover the shortfall. Usually this requires you to fly around 85 hours a month or thereabouts. In order to achieve this target I've tended to do 5 trips a month, sometimes 6 which I can assure you is exhausting. 2 days off between trips is not uncommon though you can control this somewhat with bidding. If you are under 35 you will generally be the youngest person on the trip by a noticeable margin, which is fine though doesn't always make for the most vibrant exciting nightstops. By this I'm not meaning explicitly in terms of shacking up with crew but just even in terms of going out for drinks, food, days out etc... not always but mostly you'll find the crew have been there a thousand times before, too tired, can't be arsed etc to go do anything. What they do locked away in their rooms eating pot noodles I have no idea. It's not exactly a party fun vibrant airline though that is not to say that the people you work with aren't perfectly pleasant. Mostly the trips have just one night downroute though more routes are opening for 777.
Most people in the airline are friendly and helpful though I have met one or two people who seem to think that there are only 2 types of pilot those who work for BA and those that didn't get in. These people despite what you might hear are in the minority though is does really grate on me and make me cringe when I hear that sort of nonsense. Also had one CSD who could barely bring herself to speak to me as I had only 2 stripes which was pathetic but amusing in equal measures. As I say these incidents are very isolated but they do happen.
Pay after tax, pension etc for a new joiner is around £3500 per month. The company pay in 9% of your basic to your pension which is shockingly poor really when you compare to many in the charter world who will pay in 14-15% and fares even worse to the Virgin pension. Based on default contribution rates BALPA reakon after 30 years you'd retire on a pension around £25,000. Of course you can pay in more if you want though that will reduce your monthly net pay.
Overall I think it is a good company though the workload is exceptionally high in my opinion. Pay is average when you take the pension into account and the fact that you will be at least middle aged/old by the time you get a long haul command. The job is about as secure as you can get and despite it not being a particularly vibrant airline you can have some fun nights out etc downroute now and again.
Hope this helps, all just my opinion...