I read every post on this site before i applied in 2011, so figure i should put something back in, since this is probably the reason i made it through!
Ive been here about a year now, and i can tell you that the rosters you get can vary somewhat, but what i can tell you is about 3/4 of all flights are layovers..
They may put you in Main Fleet (b777, a330, a340) or Dedicated a380 fleet.
The good thing about main fleet is that you literally get the opportunity to fly to 120 destinations all around the world, and there are new destinations being added literally every couple of months due to the amount of aircraft on order. The bad thing is sometimes you can have a roster with lots of tiring turnarounds (mainly indian turnarounds which are complete torture) but the majority of trips are layovers.. for example my roster this month consists of Rio, Bangkok Sydney Christchurch, 3 days Hong Kong, Mauritious... no turnarounds. Cant complain! if only every roster was like this.. didnt even bid!
Depending on gender/nationality requirements they can also put you straight onto a380 fleet. The good part about that is they only have 1 turnaround (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) meaning most crews get no turnarounds whatsoever. The part that annoys some people is that they only have about 15 destinations.. many crew complain becuase theyre being sent to Heathrow or Beijing all the time haha... but this will get better since they have a further 70 380s on order.. meaning destinations will obviously increase. but this includes adding indian destinations to the fleet
. Many also complain about the Crew rest area which is thrown right into the middle of the economy deck meaning you can literally hear all the noise in the cabin, and the lack of beds and large amount of crew means less time for rest... On a 14hr SYD flight this can be quite tough..
You are able to Bid for flights, every month your bidding group goes up, it is done on a 7 month rotational basis, from top bid, to bottom bid, and one group which is set aside for reserve/standby month.
Swapping flights can also be done, but it is heavily dependant on legalities, and you will find your swaps often being rejected by the system unless they meet the dozens of legality requirements.
The layover lengths can vary, but generally theyre all 24-28hrs. The Ultra Long Haul USA flights are 50hrs. The aussie trips can range from 5-8 days, and usually go like this: DXB-MEL-AKL-MEL-AKL-SYD
DXB-BKK-SYD-CHC-SYD-BKK-SYD (this is the longest trip we have left - very popular)
Sometimes when we dont operate daily to a certain destination then you may be lucky and snag a 2-3 day layover. We currently have these for Vienna, Milan, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Luanda, Shanghai, Mauritious, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Nairobi... But you have to be extremely lucky.. as the vast majority of trips to these destinations are just 1 day layovers... but still it happens!
If you wanna know anything else let us know!
I also flew with a recruiter last week and she told me heaps about the recruitment process.. if anyone wants to know anything ask away!