Hi there all you wannabee FS's
The criteria for the FT FS role is that you have flown before for more than a year as CAA rules state that you cannot be an SCA on a flight unless you have had at least 1 yr's flying experience.
The usual programme is that you will undergo initial training with all the other crew. You will then fly as crew for 3-6 months. Once you have completed this satisfactorily, you will then go for your FS course which is about a week. On this course, you will be taken through the paperwork, leadership, motivation etc. You will be expected to be able to work the aircraft already.
At bmi, you will be trained the the A320 fleet, comprising of the 319/20/21. They are configured differently as the aircraft are used for different routes. Most of the 319 are one classed. The 320's and 321's are mixed classed. The aircraft that came from bmed are configured differently from the bmi aircraft. bmi aircraft have either fixed business cabins for the mid haul routes and flexible cabins for the others. Currently, mainline bmi has 7 321's, 13 320's and 11 319's.
Service wise, this is where you might get confused, as there is the normal one class service that you pay for, the business class service on 5 of the domestic/european routes, free meals for the frequent flyers, the Moscow service, the other mid haul service (ex-bmed routes and Cairo), the Jersey service and the charter service...bmi do quite a bit of ad hoc charters over the summer and winter.
Pay wise, you get about £13.5K as an F1 and you will be paid that from joining. You will also get about £2.5K London weighting from day one. You then get flight pay per hour depending on where you night stop. UK to UK is about £2 something, UK to all others except longhaul about £2.70ish. This is from report to finish. All crew will be trained to do all flights...that is one day LHR-MAN and the next day LHR-IKA etc.
You have to live within 90 minute call out from LHR. You will be rostered a mix of days...normally 5 on 2 off, 6 on 3 off, standby's, airport back-up (which you get paid for), there and back's and night-stops. Rosters are up to 8 weeks in advance, 4 weeks in hand. They are 28 day rosters and you normally get at least 8 days off in 28. Rosters can be changed up to the day and depending on weather, aircraft servicibility, sickness, acts of God, etc...and do change often. However, days off then not to change unless for very exceptional circumstances, so you can usually count on them. Anything in between is changable!!
Longhaul out of LHR is confined to the one 330 based there that does RUH and JED. All the longhaul crew also do the mainline flights. There are plans to get another 5 330's but not till 2009. There are also plans to start US and other destinations when that happens. At the moment, there are also 2 330's based in MAN doing ORD, LAS, BGI and ANU. There is a plan in place to have all the FS's mixed fleeted but due to operational demand, only a handful have done the conversion. This is due to start again in the new year so theoretically, all the FS will be able to do all the flights.
Progression wise, there are CSM's on longhual and CSPM's on mainline that is one up from FS so there are opportunities if you want to move up.
bmi as a company is not bad...not great but not bad. Have been in existence in once form or another for over 70 years. It is still considered a small company and privately owned. You will need to consider if this is suitable for you. The people working at bmi are fantastic and have a very much can do attitude. Management can be frustrating but that's management for you!! It is not BA...it does not have the aircraft, routes or size. It does not have a very strong union and the management tend to get their way when it comes to changes.
Ultimately, you will have to consider if you can cope with this and if this is what you want...the grass is not always greener but it could be different grass!!!
