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Old 5th Sep 2017, 19:18
  #37 (permalink)  
StopStart

Champagne anyone...?
 
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: EGDL
Age: 54
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As I said, I have no particular interest in convincing anyone to join Virgin over and above any other company.

Snapper5 - new joiners are on the same pension deal. Cadets are on different benefit structure during their cadetship period so only receive a max of 10% company contribution. They then revert to the 15% scheme.

Cloudbunny - this website is handy for calculating net pay. Remember we have allowances paid to us as well, on a trip by trip basis. As with all UK airlines the way these are paid and taxed is currently being reviewed by HMRC however at present we receive an additional USD600 - 1200 a month depending on destination & frequency. If you're hoping to maintain your salary standards from the Middle East you really need to be looking at UK DEC SH jobs. As you're well aware, there's a reason they pay a premium in the ME!

Cloudn9ne - thanks for the info on BA; I'm glad that you're happy with the choices you've made, as I am with mine. Just for completeness I'd respond:

1) Correct. Virgin is a longhaul airline. We have LHR, LGW and MAN bases. The MAN basing options suits a lot of people.
2) Also correct. When/if you get your command at VS you move to the level 1 captain pay. Which is obviously a pay rise on any FO pay. Again, we're a long haul only airline so there are no options for an early command on SH. If however you want a long haul command at BA you have something of a wait in store.
3) True story although how many senior skippers are on full time contracts? The higher salaries at BA on part-time of a 900hr contract aren't that far off those of a full time 750hr contract at VS. Don't get starstruck by the ££££ signs at the top of the scales - by the mid-fifties onwards most people are doing whatever they can to reduce the amount of work they have to do!
4) We have FO TRIs, groundschool instructors and managers. Like BA. If that sort of thing floats your boat....
5) That argument cuts both ways old chap. Our rotating bid groups make it all a lot fairer overall. That's how the the 7 month FO I've just been away with got his Christmas Leave bid for this year approved.
6) We have bidding options and swapping. True your system is currently much better, especially in terms of sector swapping and automated swaps. The ability to do that is a function of the size of BA. We're much smaller so things are a bit more mandraulic. I hope it works out for you and you don't lose that flexibility but ultimately JSS is just a preferencing system like Carmen. It's going to favour the company.
I'm a year 5 747 FO. I have 15 days off this month, had 17 days in Aug and 13+4 days leave in Jul.

The other thing I'd add (ribbingly) is if it's that good at BA why do we always get a slack handful of BA folk joining us each time we recruit?

Time Traveller - Long haul is indeed fatiguing; we're lucky in that we have a 750hr contract and various time-in-seat/min days off agreements to protect us. You're right though, LH isn't for everyone. By way of comparison, I found repeated days of SH multi-sector days to be more ruinous. We're all different.

Folks, I'm happy to answer questions about VS. I'm not going to try and sell it to you and won't do an in-depth "compare and contrast" against other U.K. airlines. FYI I'm a late 40s, ex-military, ex-UK loco SH, year 5 FO on the 744. Generally v happy with my lot in life currently.
Except that the bloody stepkids won't tidy their bedrooms.
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