How much control do you have over your work- life balance?

[zebedeee]

Hi there,

I'm wondering if any cabin crew can help me with some research I'm doing on how much control cabin crew have over their work- life balance.

At your airline:

Can you bid for/ chose your trips
Can you bid for/ chose your days off?
Does your airline offer part time crew contracts? If yes, how do they decide who works part time? My airline does it for women after MAT leave and on seniority but I think some do it on "first come first served basis?
Can you combine flying with non flying duties (e.g. check in, training, office work)?I'd be ever so grateful for your help, many thanks :ok: x

[apaddyinuk]

At BA longhaul....Very little control.

We can place two trip requests a year but obviously these are not gauranteed. Each calender month we can put in a "UK" request which basically means we can request between one or two days (if two days they have to be together) specific days off however this is also not gauranteed AND if it is two days off together they company can achieve this by having you land before 1100am on the first day "off"!

That is it really. We do not have the ability to swap trips easily, we can swap back 2 backs but only with other back 2 backs. We can also "try" to swap like for like trips (LAX with SFO, or same route for later report) as long as the durration of the trip and the days off are exactly the same over the calender period. However the facility to do these swaps is so complicated (unlike Virgins rather excellent website) that I know hardly any crew who bother!

But hey... apparently I earn £29000 a year so why should I complain? Now, where do I pick up the £9000 im missing from my salary????

[zebedeee]

Thank you Apaddy, that is great (I mean the info you've given is great, not your lack of salary!)