BGs comments are interesting and I don't doubt genuine. It does lead me to a few interesting thoughts though.

Firstly, what was this individual really expecting the pay to be like on MF? Had they not done the slightest research into the projected income? Coming from a temp contract she must surely have been aware that the big allowances were gone for good? After all the raison d'etre of Mixed Fleet was that it was lower cost than existing fleets. Whilst a lower income than the temp contract is undesirable, it surely couldn't come as a surprise?

Secondly, on the matter of service, yes, service is slow. It took over 3 hours to complete the service in Club on the flight I paxed on. But it is a new fleet, and SF LGW took a long time to complete Club service when they started out. They don't know. Practice may not make perfect but it does make efficient.

Finally, the rostering. I don't know if the temp was on WW, where 4 days off after a long trip is assumed, but complaining about getting a long haul trip either side of leave elicits little sympathy from me I'm afraid. This is after all a 365 day industry, and if you want an extra day off then really you need to book that as leave, because if it ain't leave then it's the companys day. On long haul we all learn to make the most of our time off and part of that is working through the tiredness. If the individual concerned can't enjoy a day off because she's tired the day after a return from the trip then regret to say long haul really isn't for her and she won't cope in the long run.

Whilst I am sorry that the girl concerned isn't enjoying Mixed Fleet despite her initial enthusiasm, it does strike me that her expectations are a little unrealistic. I suspect this may have been partly what BA had in mind when they were concerned about contaminating Mixed Fleet; not that the people were bad, but that their expectations were unrealistic.

Latest route for Mixed Fleet is Atlanta from April.

Anyone heard anything further about getting 747 on mf too?

According to some on M/F they have seen a training day placed on the roster! which has sparked speculation that it would be for a conversion course to the 747

I also heard Seatle was joining M/F??

New MF routes & 747 license
 

New Mixed fleet routes have been confirmed for May.

AMSTERDAM & MANCHESTER.

more routes are coming shortly.

And yes, we will be licensed on the 747 from April. (it has been confirmed and communicated to us a few days ago)

It's getting better and better and we enjoy it more and more!

B747 on mixed fleet
 

let me first say that as VCC, I enjoyed my recent fam trip on the 777, a great bunch that seemed to really be enjoying themselves both on and of the aircraft. They included me in everything they did even though I was considerably older than most of them. I hope they do get the B747' as I will then be able to do 747 recency with them instead of the classroom or Cardiff. Good luck to you all.

Hi All,

I'm a CSM on MF and i can give you a small insight into how things are.

I don't post on here, but i do read and feel that some of the comments warrent some clarification.

I came from current fleets and have worked for BA for 15 years, so i've seen both sides of the fence.
As a CSM, my basic is £25000 and on top of that, with a full months flying and 2 allocated Ground Duty Days, my allowances range between £600 and £800 pounds at the moment.

For me. it's a great place to work, the majority of the crew are excellent and we as a fleet have a wealth of experience from both internal and external crew.

Yes, we are very new as a fleet and there have been problems with rostering and time off after trips, however, these problems have and are being dealt with on a continuous basis.

These problems were all present at the start of SFG and as time moves on, things will become better and the crew will become more comfortable with the services and requirements of Mixed Fleet.

We will now start to get licensensed on the 747 from the end of March and this will open up opportunities for the fleet and possibly some new destinations( although not confirmed!) and can only be good for the airline as growth is definately the way forward.

What I will say though is, there is a small amount of negativity surrounding pay etc, but the majority of the crew are happy, especially those who have come from other airlines and industry, and are used to 4 sector days and no nightstops or longhaul trips.

I hope this gives a little insider info into MF.

Regards
CB

With the upcoming 747 training taking place soon, are there any rumours of new routes to be added to M/F?

No.

However, any new routes that are transferred depend on having the appropriate number of 747-trained crew to operate the service, as well as avoiding transferring routes seens as financially lucrative from worldwide fleet (though this strategy could change).

Smell the Coffee
 

Surely BA should transfer the most 'lucrative routes' , ie most expensive to BA, first.
This is a profit making company and MF costs are a fraction of WW/EF.
Savings on one route, the Haneda MF operation, over a year are over £3 mil vs. a WW operation. (Salaries, allowances, roster efficencies, etc.)

Cessnapete, the answer comes from a mixed fleet manager, and the current division of routes would seem to back this up - with the exception of HND which is a new service, most other longhaul MF routes were never particularly lucrative on worldwide ... DEN, LAS, NBO, LAD, ATL, MRU ....that may change with the introduction of the 747 on the route, unless MF picks up DFW, IAH, YVR, LOS and other "unpopular" 3-day trips ... in which case you may start to notice the pattern emerging.

Another consideration is the customer satisfaction scores for a particular route; where these have been historically lower than average, MF managers have aimed to pick these up ... this was the rationale given for transferring LAD to MF.

EZE and SAN will both be operated by Worldwide...EZE in particular will be reasonably lucrative on a Worldwide contract.

Personally this doesn't concern me ... I have flown to the vast majority of destinations on the BA network, and quite enjoy shorter trips ...

cesnapete,
In time Mixed Fleet WILL get to do some of the longer routes, that you see as lucrative.

BA intends to keep a fair share of routes on all our fleets. They want to give Mixed Fleet crew some good and varied destinations to go to and they also want to ensure that WW and E/F crew do not get adversely affected by the introduction of Mixed Fleet.

B F and K W have both stated that routes will move back and forth between fleet and that although WW and E/F will get smaller gradually, they plan to keep a fair ratio of lucrative and non lucrative trips on our fleets.

Did you post your post with the intention of stirring things up!!

I for one am very happy for Mixed Fleet to get some good destinations as long as it is done in a fair and balanced way and I believe that this will be done.

If I hear of any of the 747 routes, I will post them on here.

BG
 

Posted with tongue in cheek!!!

Rumour from another place says the June routes for MF are San Diego and one of the LAX services

I have a friend (experienced CC) who joined MF as a FA, and I thought I could offer some thoughts based on his experiences - he's not a pprune user.

Firstly, it's very much the case that he is where he aspired to be. He believes in BA, he loves working longhaul, especially in premium service, and wants to make a go of it.

However ... it represented a significant pay cut to go there. Obviously during training there is none of the £2.40 per hour. Furthermore, it's spread over six weeks, some of the days are very short during training, but you have to drive in and out of the LHR area for all of them - lots of driving, lots of petrol, lots of rush hour traffic which you'll have to cover the cost of yourself. My friend knew this period was going to be expensive, so rescheduled payments to allow for it. Even so, he put a couple of thousand miles on his car in this time.

You have to pay for your own US visa, despite the fact that it is only usable for work!! This costs nearly £100, and will be docked from your salary. First month's salary was around £800. Next was therefore around £700. My friend doesn't think that much more than £1100 per month is going to be likely even once the allowances start to kick in.

Looking at rosters, hours are already being balanced so hopefully you won't hit 900 in eight months - my friend has mostly longhaul trips, and LOTS of sby. You may be rostered a duty the day after a nightflight (NBO), and the fleet doesn't generally have crew rest areas - my friend said "crew rest" was sitting shivering on a crew seat by the door. It's legal ....

<section edited by Young Paul>

Basically, as far as I can tell, the conditions for crew at MF are substantially worse than average, presumably to try and counterbalance the expensive WW contracts - he's hundreds of pounds a month worse off than at easyJet, which was where he was before, and having to live in an area which will cost probably around £200 a month more. There is no way that this is "going rate plus 10%", it is unrealistic to expect to be able to live on this unless you have paid for accommodation.

There is a monthly bonus, paid quarterly, for people who have not been off sick or late in the month. This is around £150

BA offers you the ability to get an advance against next month's salary, apparently. This is great if you know that this month you're only getting £1600, but next month you're getting £2300. However, if the range is £700-1100, this is probably a fast way to end up in more debt.

As I've said already, this is totally where he wants to be. But the lack of money is something that really worries him.

Edit: There is compensation for days off lost. I thought there probably had to be!

As promised I am posting the next route to go to Mixed Fleet and it is San Diego in June it has just been posted on the BA cabin crew forum by management.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The below list shows the routes which have now transferred to Mixed Fleet - these are correct at the point in time when this page was last updated. Routes in Blue have transferred from Worldwide and are Longhaul routes, Routes in Red have transferred from Eurofleet and are Shorthaul routes.

These routes are subject to possible future change i.e. it is possible that any of these routes could move back to Worldwide/Eurofleet and be replaced by different routes in future months.

November 2010 - Prague (PRG), Pisa (PSA), St Petersburg (LED)
December 2010 - Denver (DEN), Las Vegas (LAS)
January 2011 - Budapest (BUD), Nairobi (NBO)
February 2011 - Kiev (KBP), Tripoli (TIP), Mauritius (MRU) and Haneda* (HND)
March 2011 - Luanda (LAD)
April 2011 - Atlanta (ATL)
May 2011 - Manchester (MAN) and Amsterdam (AMS)
June 2011 - San Diego** (SAN)

* New BA route from 19th Feb 2011
** New BA route from June 2011
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you new Mixed Fleeters enjoy it.

BG.

Apparently an announcement is to be made about M/F today, Suggestions, that it could be about pay for Cabin Crew.

Any truth in the rumour?

Didn't this rumour start on the BASSA forum though atmosphere ?

No sign of any announcment.

Recently had a chat with a very pro-Mixed Fleet Future Talent Crew member.

She said to me that she was feeling very tired and disappointed with the rostering and pay on Mixed Fleet.
She took home last month, including her quarterly bonus of £300 and her £100 extra as FTC, just £1100.

She said that the crews were lovely but very young and she hoped the rostering and pay would get improved soon. She had an interview for CSM coming up but if she was unsuccessful in achieving that, she would have to consider leaving.

I said that I had heard rumors that a lot were leaving and she said that she new of many that had left.

She said that she spent every flight, training people how to do the job and that, that was adding to her tiredness.

I asked my manager if many were leaving and she said she had heard it was 3% but that, that figure may be out of date. She added, as the fleet had only be going a few months that, that was a high figure and it should be of concern to BA that so many were leaving at this early stage.

Anyway I truely hope the pay and rostering gets improved for all of you because apart from that most crew seem happy.