BMIBABY-What are they like to work for?

[hotnhi]

Are Baby recuiting at the moment and if so what are they looking for and who do I contact?

Also, I would be pleased to hear from any EMA based pilots; are you happy bunnies? What are Baby like to work for? Views, both positive and negative please.

[Chillyfly]

You'll get lots of differing opinion here but beware of the source. There are an awful lot of BMI mainline pilots covering very long duty days for Baby at the moment, spending half their lives in taxis, working 12 hour days on a 45 minute report, without any crew food, and no sector pay. As mainline 737 pilots the union agreed to a temporary situation of us covering the shortfall of Baby crews in order to allow the airline to get on it's feet quickly. However, this has been going on for a long time now with no sign of it ending in the immediate future.

So on the one hand you may get some very negative feedback from mainline pilots 'on loan' to Baby (and rightly so...), but their situation is very different from Baby contracted crews. This also means that there is a definite shortfall of pilots within Baby. BMI's early attempts to encourage / bully 737 rated crews into Baby with the fear of redundancy at mainline hanging over their heads hasn't had the desired take-up, with the result that there are numerous revisions to the terms being offered to transferring mainline crew to make it more attractive. Also a recent spate of resignations from mainline has removed the pilot surplus, so once again it will soon become a seller's market! The result being that the terms offered to Baby new hire's might improve further.

As for the work pattern, probably typical low cost. Four sector days, short turnarounds, a mix of long and short sectors eg EMA-ALC-EMA-CDG-EMA. Eight days off a month, no pension, good productivity, bloody hard work, no crew meals (that should be sorted soon with a few more ASR's!) At least you'll build hours quickly if you need them.

Cheers

[fast cruiser]

just like to echo chillyfly in what he says

The Fokker 100 fleet is predominately bmibaby flying, very hard work, no food, short turnarounds, etc etc etc not to mention a lot of the guys being kicked out of EMA at the same time and rebasing to LHR.

BMIBABY was intended to be a stand alone company but in the time it has been running it is mainly bmi mainline that is doing the work either the 737 drivers in CWL or Fokker drivers at EMA.

Think carefully before you jump

cheers

fc