Great thread, thanks everyone, especially Count Bisto for your informative input!
I have a few questions if anyone would like to respond. Talking about a LGW base (obviously not immediately, but when they hire there again)
1. When you talk about the roster changes, does that include changing your days off? Or are they set in stone?
2. Do FO get the same 5/3/5/4 as the captains, or a different scheme?
3. Can annual leave be taken as single days here and there, or is there a minimum chunk? Can you take 5 days leave and get a 12 day block including rostered days off?
4. Is there any chance to take a week of leave in August or thereabouts, or is that simply not possible?
5. What are the max hrs in a month and a year?
6. Can anyone send me an indicative month or two roster?
Thanks in advance!
1. Days off set in stone, in 7 years I have never had a phone call from easyjet after checkout I.e days off or after duty. They can only call you on duty.
2. No only SFO
3. Yes single days or blocks but you can't leave a single working day. That's on a fixed roster. Random rosters that new joiners are on you have guaranteed days off each month you can request but don't know how it works. Also on random for leave if you book one day off you get a day either side wrap around for free so 1 leave day equals three off, these wrap around days increase on the number of days taken off.
4. Depends, it's hard but the system is meant to work in that if you get leave in these months like Xmas they incure higher penalty points so the following year your down the list when you bid for leave and prob unlikely get it again until the following year after when in theory not getting good weeks that year your now up the list on low points and so on. So every other year you should get 'what you want' if you always need to bid for school holidays etc. Doesn't always work though.
5. 100 flying
6. No because the last 2 months I've had 20-30 hrs which isn't normal really. I tend to average around 700 hours a year.
The good....Best short/medium haul gig in town if your at a regional base and get onto a standard 'old Skool' contract after a few years, good pay same as my charter mates and a few hundred less than my BA chums when I was an FO, now a skipper so higher now, security, flying variety and good colleagues to fly with, thank you letters with a bottle champagne every Xmas and when you 'go the extra mile' like when a day has been challenging always nice to get back into the crew room to have a bottle of wine and a card from the base captain waiting there , free shares, Xmas bonus . Never been questioned when off sick (quite a few times) or fatigued (happened twice in 7 years).
The bad...no long haul if you don't want to be home every night, LGW hard work, new joiners contract for the first 2-3 years I don't agree with during record profits time. i find 4 sector days allot more fatigueing than extra long 2 sector days. Pension 7% from company isn't good enough it should be at least 12% in my eyes, Some people prefer 4 sectors. I couldn't be doing it full time past 55. Uniform quality EZY can be penny proud, pound foolish.
No matter what people say it's not BA
but it's not far off for many. BA offer a great overall package with the option to change fleets and control over rosters.
Time to command about 4-5 years (will change as we stop expanding and people are far off from retirement)
Pay Capt 100k basic plus loyalty bonus (10% each year paid on month of joining up until 10years then 15% which is great it's about 25K in one month before the tax man helps himself) plus sector pay . So 120k-130k
Pay SFO 60k basic plus loyalty and sector. 70-75k (up to 5 years loyalty pay is 5%)
Not sure about the new joiners pay for the first few years heard it's about 42k second officer no sector pay for a year then 52k First officer and sector pay and it's a few thousand hours for SFO....not 100% though.
The good, the bad and the ugly