I'd like to take issue with a couple of points here
1) You'll fly 800hrs+ on SH. Completely incorrect as far as my experience goes. 600 hours in the last twelve calendar months. Others I speak to have averaged around 700*
2) Spending over three and a half hours on a turnaround? Never done it, not once. The maximum I've had is maybe an hour to an hour and a half. Maybe there are duties with such a turnaround hidden somewhere but they're absolutely not frequent.
3) The relationship with cabin crew. Again I found this to be a complete over exaggeration, yes there are some pissed off guys and gals but the amount of times they cause you a problem is minimal. You don't get to form much of a relationship with them as they are always swapping aircraft at Heathrow but that's the nature of the beast, aside from that I've noticed no real difference in the relationship between Flightdeck and cabin crew to the other large airlines I've worked for. There is some genuine banter to be had out there on the line, be in no doubt.
4) My sample size is admittedly limited (as usually I'm on public transport to the local hotels but have done a few reserve periods now with a hire car in the car park) but, again, not once have I had to wait 45 minutes. I think the longest wait has been 5-10 minutes. Yes with some late finishes too.
I've said it before but there are some gross over exaggerations on pprune. It seems to be think of the worst case scenario you can imagine (which I admit sometimes does occur) and make out like it is something that happens all the time (it doesn't). You really have to take the postings on here with a large grain of salt. Amigo South's post was written almost a year before I joined and being honest, I can't vouch for what he's said as regards day to day life here. There are some grains of truth in there but if you're someone who sweats the small stuff and spends their life being overwhelmingly negative then no doubt that post will chime with you. If you take it as it comes you'll see that the things mentioned happen infrequently enough for you not to be bothered by them.
I'm sat writing this on eight straight days off by the way. It's not leave and it's not a DFW. Yes I've done a couple of 6 on 2 off 6 ons in the past, but you take the rough with the smooth and - more importantly - try getting eight days off at Ryanair or easyJet as part of your normal pattern. I've got another seven day block of days off next month too, again it's not holiday. This isn't a willy waving contest either, it's just to demonstrate and highlight the level of roster control you can get at BA (yes even on short-haul and even when you're 80% away from the top of the list).
*Flight time as a measure of workload in BA is notoriously inaccurate.
Last edited by RexBanner; 5th Apr 2017 at 22:40.