GB Airways - Time to Captain

[Shaftspeare]

From recent experience, I would say you stand a good chance of a fast command with your 'particular' background. Recently ex-RAF have received promotion to Captain within 6 months of joining the company.
It will all depend on the effects of the current course of action being steered by the management and how many pilots are really lost through being unprepared to tolerate the relentless degradation to their lifestyles. I have been at GB a while now and it is fair to say it has changed beyond all recognition in the past few years and in no way for the better in any respect. At GB it used to be all about the lifestyle, with middle of the road remuneration as the acceptable compromise. Now we remain lower league in terms of pay and bottom of the table in regards to lifestyle and Terms & Conditions:

• Quite possibly the worst rostering in the business with rosters being unsympathetically and inflexibly produced.
• Obscure split duties of dubious legality
• Repetitive deep night flights
• Very unsociable hours (lates finishing at 0300L, earlies starting 0430L usually just after a late!!)
• Bussed around the country in a van (LHR, EMA and BRS) after a duty, charter style but without the charter money or conditions.
• 14 1/2hr there and back duty days to remote and exotic Red Sea destinations (think UN mine clearing operations in AQJ!)
• Food unfit for human consumption
• Lowest pay of any UK Airbus operator (don’t take that much notice of the gross figures, you will receive virtually no allowances & so after tax will find yourself coming up short compared to colleagues in other airlines doing virtually the same job only with more sensible working hours)
• Profit related bonus a thing of the past
• Uncertain future, BA franchise in question, competition with easyJet on all but our most extreme routes.
• The taking on of contract F/O’s this year to bridge crewing gaps that should have been foreseen and planned in advance for.
• Damp leasing Excel 737 all next summer (effect on commands, product delivery?)
• Enforced move to Jubilee House as of March next year for flight deck, with parking in Z Overflow adding an extra hour a day for no compensation. You will now find yourself either waiting to go to work or waiting to return to your car in the pouring rain and wind at 0300.

I think many in GB fall into the category of either being very low Houred/Cadet/First jet job types who are rightly pleased to be gaining valuable experience on an excellent aircraft type whilst building hours towards some future career plan outside of GB. Or, contrastingly, people with experience from elsewhere who are hoping to move swiftly across into the LH Seat and rack up jet command time before moving on. If GB is not careful it could quickly become a training airline as many begin to view a career here as simply untenable.

Based on the above, and no doubt many other facets of life at GB that I have probably neglected to mention here, my only advice during these current times of buoyant pilot employment prospects would be to join anyone of the other larger, better paying, better treating outfits that also have the added benefit of some degree of job security in a volatile industry. Remember GB is very much one family’s private train set to do with as it pleases.

With seemingly all ties to BA now being systematically cut (with both engineering and ground handling being outsourced to other companies as of next week), the vague hope of maybe someday being absorbed are now fading fast - despite the best wishes of the piloting fraternity at BA who of course would love nothing more than to see the girls and boys of GB amalgamated into their seniority list!
So as not to ignore the positive aspects it must stated that the Staff Travel Benefits are excellent. Whether or not it would be sensible to join an airline and base a serious career decision upon them is something you must ask yourself......


I hope this information is of some help to you, good luck with your decision!