British Airways - Wannabes & Recruitment

[BA Boi]

Marti06,

here's a few answers to your questions:

money: i'm on longhaul now, but during my last whole year on shorthaul at LHR my gross earnings were just a couple of quid under £26,500. so if you take an average over that 12 month period you would be grossing about £2208.33p per month. knock off about 23% of that for nat. ins; income tax; pension and union fees to get your take home pay. obviously, whatever you spend on your crewcard (used to get money out of hotels downroute) you would take off your take home pay. the average for shorthaul is about £100-£200 per month, but obviously that does vary from person to person. however don't forget that you can self-fund if you want to and just keep crewcard for emergencies.

rosters: guaranteed 10 days off per month every month except february where it's 9 days. you can bid for trips and days off. generally the system does give you what you want, however some months you wont get much of what you ask for. but generally speaking, the majority of the time you do end up with a good roster if you nail the bidding system down. mix of trips include there and backs (london/paris/london); double days (london/edinbrugh/london/glasgow/london); split duties (i.e. less than minimum rest nightstop in, say, frankfurt. usually the last flight out of london to that destination and the first flight back in from there the next day); two day trips (i.e. amsterdam nightstop); three day trips (i.e. lisbon one night, copenhagen the next) and standovers (a three day trip but with the middle day free of duty such as in bucharest; athens; larnaca; helsinki and one or two others that change each month). you nightstop in about 32 cities accross europe on shorthaul.
generally you can expect to be away from home for about 4-7 nights per month - sometimes less, sometimes more.
there are plenty of crew who commute from far greater distances than crawley on shorthaul. leeds and birmingham are just two of many places that crew that i've worked with live. brighton and devon are others.

transfer: there will be a transfer list opening in october/november this year (opens once every two years) to put your name down for longhaul. however, it will take some time to achieve that transfer. expect to wait around 2 1/2 or more than likely 3-3 1/2 years for that. however longhaul at heathrow will be growing at a substantial rate from next spring onwards for a good few years with new destinations and more aircraft etc so you may not have to wait that long afterall, as they will need crew to man that expansion.

accommodation: no accommodation website that i'm aware of, but in cranebank and compass centre there are loads of notice boards advertising accommodation for crew in shared housing with other crew etc. so you won't be short of options there if you do decide to move out of crawley. as you mentioned windsor is a very popular location for crew on shorthaul.

i really do strongly, strongly advise you to accept that training course for august - you won't regret it.

hope any of this helps.