BALPA Employment Conference 2nd Sept
 

Hello,

Anybody know if this thing BALPA have organised is any good?

Are the airlines actually going to be interested in talking to low-hour folks or is it just for good PR for the airlines and making BALPA look important and in control?

£55 to get in and at the hell hole called Heathrow seems like a stupid idea. Perhaps if they organised it elsewhere it would be somewhat cheaper.

Cheers, Bob

Hi there went to the EOC conference in 2004. Approached a main charter airline in the afternoon in the open forum as well as many other airline stands that day. Was called for interview a couple of weeks later, sim assessment a couple of weeks after that and started a jet course at the beginning of january 2005.

I have to say after the day i thought it was waste of money, as none of the airlines were saying anything that positive. Plus an expensive evening in the centre of London followed!

In retrospect i dont know whether my current employer remembered me from the day and thats why i was called, but showing my face and having a chat certainly didnt seem to do me any harm.

I would say go for it, what do you have to lose! Good luck you can always head into London afgter and have a few beers, I did!!

Sorry forgot to say!

i wasnt low houred, I had 200 hours with 500 on turboprops! about 80% of the people attended were low houred. Either graduated or undergoing training.

were you a low hours 300-ish fresh from CPL/IR/MCC ??

may i ask which company it was??

cheer/Bob

Tell BALPA they can stick it up their arse, I'm not paying to attend that pile of crap, been 3 years in a row, all ready a paid up member, shame on anybody who PAYS to attend a conference that is for PAYING unemployed members......!!!!

If BALPA wanted to help us guys, they would put that on for nothing, its one day, and they charge for it....shame on them....

BOYCOTT thats what I say.

WB

that's right, 55 pounds is scandalous.
I have already given up my membership with Balpa.
Airlines do not like Unions. Better to stay away from them...Balpa is for BA captains or rich kids having a dad at BA.
If an airline discovers you are part of an union , your CV go straight to the bin...

cheers dudes.

gonna bin the BALPA membership application and ticket application tonight.

£80 towards my IR renewal at least :ugh:

Ipa ??
 

is the IPA any better ??

The Balpa Conference can work. If I were you, I'd go straight to the GB stand.........................;)

Anyhow, its has to better than spending your time typing away on this web-site for just one afternoon out of 365 considering you get the chance to stand in front of The Bosses? How often does that happen?

What a load of tripe!

Guys, you can complain about BALPA all you like - and I agree their charges for the Employment Seminar are excessive - but BALPA is not really for Wannabes. It is essentially for people already in the industry, and its primary task is protecting and improving their terms of employment - which it does very well. While it makes a few noises about helping Wannabes, there is no real effort in that direction, and its job-advice provision is really directed at people who already have some experience. That said, BALPA is trying to improve its offerings for people at your end of the industry.

However, I am not a BA Captain, nor am I a rich kid who has a Dad at BA. My airline (and most others in UK) is not at all anti-Union, and nearly all of us were in BALPA before we joined. Do not listen to dartagnan. On this, as on so much else, he is talking out of his rear end.

Scroggs

Suggestion if I may Scroggs,

Why did Balpa last year, and the previous 3 years see an increasing demand in low hour people attending the conference?

They said at last years conference that there were practically no one 'in the industry' (with a decent job) in attendence!

The quick show of hands demonstrated at the time, that theory quite nicely....

Lets be honest here, the people already in the industry, (I don't consider myself one being just a lowly FI...) aren't really going to need the likes of some crummy conference at LHR are they?

They have the contacts, the hours, and the lateral manouverability within the industry, to get better jobs, because they already have the time and that all important foot on the ladder...

I fear, as most things in the aviation world for new people to experience, that , BALPA's EOC is little more than a cash fund top up...

WB

I don't speak for BALPA; I am just a member. As far as I know, BALPA charges so much because (I believe) it is required by its own rules to recover the costs incurred by the event. Ring up the hotel and see what the hire of the facilities costs - don't forget the IT provision, or lunch. All the attendees from the airlines will be paid a contribution towards their expenses as well. On top of that is the secretarial and organisational time put in before the event, as well as on the day. None of this is cheap. Making money is not the aim - if BALPA wanted to do that, it could do so much more easily!

As a full member, I pay BALPA around £800 a year for my membership. £55 is one of their less expensive offerings!

Scroggs

I got a job by a low costs airline on jet...during the interview, a young pilot asked if they like Unions(never ask this kind of question), the captain recruiter was really pissed off:"we dont want see that, here union have no place, do you know what happened to other airlines,bla bla bla"

join an union, and your CV is good for the bin...
you can still join Balpa after being hired!;)

That a CV might be binned because of someone's union affiliation seems a little far-fetched - unless you state your membership on your CV, how would they know? That said, if you do put it down, you deserve to be binned for stupidity in general :}

It is worth remembering however, that UK employment law protects your right to belong to a union and not suffer because of that choice... Better in than out these days I reckon (and that's speaking as a member of 'management', allbeit not in aviation at the mo).

I attended in 2004 & 2005 and was glad I did. It gave me, as a shiny new modular CPL/IR, an idea of the competition and what the employers were looking for:- i.e. Integrated bods.:ugh:
In 2005 it was interesting to note the people lurking in the back ground. John Bell (BMI Regional) & Nick Hayter (Jet2) to name a couple. It was as if they were checking up on what their competition was doing about recruitment. I also got to speak to both men quietly and it gave me a boost when one man said he had seen a few of my CVs on his desk. :eek:
That said it made me very much aware that I had to do something to drag my sorry ass up from the masses of other new CPL/IRs. A FI rating followed by 8 months part time instructing, (Holding down two other jobs to pay the mortgage):{ and I got an invitation for an interview with a company out of the blue. (Was neither BMI regional or Jet2, their loss). I am looking at starting sometime next year with the company.:ok: Was it due to a great CV? Probably not. Was it just luck? More than likely.
Back to the subject. The conference gave me the spur I needed to keep progressing in the industry that has finally lead to a position on a flight deck in the near future. If I was not working on the day as an instructor, I would be going again just to get the feel of the industry in 2006.
One last note, the food in 2004 was better than 2005. :(

All the best Mumbo

P.S Only my humble opinion

mumbo

Get their promise in writing and signed by both parties. One sniff of trouble and the hold pool is gone. I spent a year in a one which never came off. Im flying now but it basically wasted a year of my life after flight school.

Cheers

Tried to get a ticket earlier today (1st Sept) - I know it's passed the date but tried anyhow!

Not a chance!!!

anyway, it s illegal to charge so much just to attend a conference.
when I will get a job, Balpa ,don't count on me.
I have been with you when unemployed , you didn't help me, so why should I pay you a % of my salary???better to keep my money for an aviation attorney.

Anyone back from the conference willing to give a run down!

my feedback: I have saved 300-500 euro by not going.:}