Flying Boi
At LGW we currently fly on two main aircraft types Boeing 777 and 737-300/500/436 and there is a group or crew who are also liscensed on the Airbus A320 family (though only the A319 appears at Gatters)
The 737-5/3's, of which there are about 14, are old and knackered and due to be phased out realtively shortly and replace with A319's at which point I imagine the whole fleet will be put on the bus.
the remaining 737-436's are ours unfortunately so we're supposed to be keeping them until 2014 - if they don't fall out of the sky first at which point BA is supposedly moving to a completely airbus shorthaul fleet - though CEO's come and go so who knows what will happen in 2014!!!
Our Rosters are pretty good I took 12 days off in January and still cleared £1300 with only two years seniority. My average take home is around £1500 sometimes it's up to £1800 but only really sips lower when my hours are high and I am grounded or I am on leave.
Standby is allocated in blocks of up to 7 days (In summer only to cover the 7 day ANU trip - though there is a long debate with the TU's about this at the moment I wouldn't let it worry you!). The least standby you are likely to be rostered in a month is one 3 day block though you may find one 6 day block and one 4 day block on occasion it really can be pot luck! The only time you won't see nay is when your hours are high.
It is rostered as either home stnadby (90 mins to check in after being called) or airfield standby (commonly known as Airport Surprise) where you sit around for 6 hours waiting for a nice 4 day BDA (yay! it does happen!) or a night trip to Varna (in which case you find the lazy bugger who didn't turn up and drop file them a dead fish!)
We also get 900 hrs groundwork which is essentially a non operational day however you can be called 24 hrs before one of these days if your rolling hours come down from 900 (which will happen if you go off schedule and a flight is cancelled so you can predict if you will get used quite easily).
Some people say the bidding doesn't work - I'll duck in preparation for the retort form my colleagues but I would say it does work if you knwo how to use it properly - a lot of people don't and blame it on some company conspiracy which is rubbish. I'm failry good with computers and ensure that I bid for a wide variety of flights making it easier for the systme to satisfy my bid. Some people bid for 7 day ANU's with low seniority and wonder why they don't get them (there are only 4 a month so room for 40 crew out of 1400! who are probably all bidding for them) or they may bid for a 7 day ANu and their weekends off - not easy to achieve!!! Anywya just make sure that when you are learning the system get good advice not old advice!!!
My roster for April is my 12th on this fleet in BA and is the 12th with at least 90% satisfaction.
It reads SEP (recurrent training yikes!)
then
Airport Standby
Home Standby x 3
Days off x 2
7 Day ANU
Days off x 3
GVA layover (3 day trip one day off in GVA)
days off x 2
3 Day MCO
days off x 2
BLQ Layover (3 day trip day off in BLQ)
days off x 2
lovely and for me quite typical the shorthaul isn't always as nice and I would replace my SEP with another longhaul usually.
I love the fleet - I b*tch and moan about the things I'd liek the company to change but at teh end of the day it is a great base with great people and the salary for an unskilled worker is quite fair (and if you bid wisely rather than just for the carribean it can be comparable to LHR British Airways)
Happy Flying and I hope to see some older Dollies online soon too!
Matt x