What happens to the "Fixed flight pay" for those of us joining who are unlikely to see an aircraft for the first few months of training
AFAIK the change to pay and the system is fairly instant.
I very much stand to be corrected but I'm not sure new joiners picked up Flying pay (variable or fixed) from day one anyway, so plan on being on basic. Somebody I'm sure will correct me or will clarify when Flying pay/Rate is first triggered (perhaps early days of line training when the requirement for a safety pilot is dropped ?). In any event from now on in your career in BA the variable rate will not get paid unless you fly, so if you are sick, or doing an internal type conversion/upgrade or ground course within BA you will lose an element of your monthly pay. However the theory is that when you actually do fly it's an higher hourly rate and so there's an offset/break even point of x00 hours a year, but certainly the loss of pay if on the ground for any reason was one of the objections that many had to the change back to the variable rate.
What exactly are these statements about JSS and how is it supposed to work?
Good question. You'll no longer be bidding for lines, you'll be expressing preferences (bid groups). The most senior pilots will get first pick, but perhaps with a lesser chance of picking up all the top work/days off.. ....as for how it works in reality I know one or two people who think they know how it might work, the rest of us...............
.