Life in BA as a new, low-houred FO.

[2beornot2be]

Hi folks,

First time I have posted on this, so be gentle. I cannot really go into my situation in too much detail (220 hours Fzn ATPL), but am looking for someone who has recently joined BA as a low-houred FO and what their opinion thus far is. Finally, if anyone has any details on T's and C's for the SSP Scheme, that would be great too.

You can send me a PM if you want, or post on here, not looking to start any arguments.

Thanks folks and Happy Flying.

2beornot2be

[Riker]

I am curious about this too. What aircraft type and base would most likely be expected? If LGW 737 and LHR Airbus are offered, which would be a better experience from a development standpoint?

Cheers

[Human Factor]

AFAIK, no-one has started yet on the new intake. First new entrants will appear in the New Year so won't be on line until March ish.

As you say, the offer will be for either 737s at LGW or the Airbus at LHR. No other fleets are available to new entrants such as yourselves (SSPs - self-sponsored pilots). There's probably not a lot in it between the two fleets in practice. Obviously the 737 is a more hands on aeroplane that actually needs flying. The A320 is significantly more advanced technology, however from a pure flying point of view, it's much less involved. Plus the "powers that be" won't allow you to take out the autothrottle when you're flying manually. Try that on a 737 and you'll have an interesting time.

So in summary, if it's hands-on flying you want, choose the 737. If you want to fly out of LHR above all else, choose the A320. Lifestyle has been discussed elsewhere, although LHR will have more nightstops than LGW. Having said all that, you won't get a choice of type for your first five years and will be going where you're sent, although you can express a preference.

[crazypilot]

great expectations

You say it's a daily drag - by what do you mean exactly? Just curious - I don't work for BA so just wondering what things are like. Can't be as much of a drag as a standard desk job though...!

Cheers

CP

[normal_nigel]

GE

With as much respect as I can muster.

Why don't you sod off somewhere else and let someone who would give their right arm for your job have it?

Bet you're a scream to fly with as most of us rather like it at BA for better or worse.

I take it you have never worked for another carrier? You're an ex-catet I take it so got the training for free?

You sound like an ungrateful little t**t to me and your attitude is pathetic.


Wait while I get you your pipe and slippers.

NN

[Carnage Matey!]

Turn up at work, nowhere to park.
Wait ages for bus.
Try to check in, no working PC.
Find working PC, printer broken.
Find PC with working printer, printer jams.
Fix printer. Printer jams.
Find new PC.
Rush briefing, race for the bus.
No bus.
Arrive at stand late. No aircraft. Wait for aircraft.
Board aircraft. Can't clean aircraft or board passengers as previous wheelchair/stretcher pax still on board.
No dispatcher.
Dispatcher arrives. No gate staff.
Departure delayed due cabin crew industrial agreement.
Board passengers, keep one eye on dispatcher to ensure no funny business with staff travellers.
No pushback team.
Slot expires.
Get new slot.
Tug arrives. Slowly.
15 minutes airfield delay.
Get airborne, fighting your way through airspace of SE England on frequencies so congested it takes you five minutes just to check in.
Fly to foreign airfield (no manual thrust please, thats banned)
Turn round aircraft.
Wait for slot.
Return to LHR (remember to load extra fuel, 8 mins contingency ain't enough).
Join hold - go round and round for 25 minutes.
Land.
Fight your way round LHR.
Wait to cross 27L
Keep waiting.
Patience is a virtue you know........
Cross the runway, call ground to find where your stand isn't. Wait for stand.
Taxy to stand.
Hold short of stand until guidance is turned on.
Repeat all LHR related points at top of list.
Wait for bus.
Get on bus and plead with bus driver to take you direct to other aircraft as you are already an hour late instead of going where he wants you to go.
Repeat all LHR related points at top of list.
Get airborne.
Arrive at foreign airport.
Wait 30 minutes for bus.
Long transfer to hotel.
Check in late at night.
Wave goodbye to cabin crew - won't be seeing them.
Have beer in hotel bar - feel paranoid.

Does that sounds like a typical day at your outfit Commander? Try adding all that before you even start flying an aircraft, and do it for 12 of the last 15 days and you'll start to see why some people in BA don't burst with joy at the thought of going to work.

[Carnage Matey!]

Some people do. You forgot to add 'You've never had it so good'.

And I'd just thought I'd remind normal_nigel that since the last but one pay deal (which he probably voted for) the cadets have repayed BA considerably more than the cost of their ab-initio training through reduced salaries and cadet clawback over a five year period. Hardly my definition of free training.

[tunneler]

If life is really that bad, then perhaps throw in the towel? No point in continuing for another 20+ years doing something you dont particularly like. Tough decision to make and all that but you only get one life - gotta enjoy it while you can!!

[grunt]

I worked for a charter outfit.
I applied to BA.
I got in.
I thank my lucky stars.
Brilliant working conditions.
Great time off thanks to bidline.
Great pay
I get fed on board the a/c.
Good holidays.
Great staff travel perks.
Modern well serviced a/c.
Etc Etc Etc

One drawback

SURROUNDED BY WHINGERS, USUALLY EX CADETS

[Re-Heat]

Firstly, are the new cadets to start on the cadet salary? If so, BA is getting a huge benefit of the reduced salary without having paid the training cost...

Secondly, unconstructive whingining is just unconstructive - do something about it or let someone else who wants to do it have your job

[Sarl]

My daughter is one of those cadets and boy does she still retain her passion for flying. Who cares about the downsides? They are nothing when you look at the upsides.
I have one of those 9-5 jobs - well actually more 7 'til 11 - and given my time over, I know what I would love to be doing. Flying planes, particularly today when she is heading for a sunny destination and I am sitting in the cold, wet and wind of the North of England!

[Office_With_A_View]

Sorry, but those that complain about wanting a 9-5 job should try one. Did it (Sort of!) for a while and hated being in the office Chained to the desk with the same wet boring view out of the window, being moaned at because the paperwork is still piling up. I used to love the days when I managed to get out on site and work there much more fun.

Now I work for a TP operator and Just love the challenges that flying gives me and the changing view from my office window. Where else can you meet new people everyday and face the same challenges but with a new twist everyday. I love my job and even though I miss parts of my old job there is no way I would ever go back even though the pay would be better.

I think that those Cadets that have gotten a job in Aviation before having a career else where and especially those that have not worked their way up from the Instructing and Turbo Prop jobs should be given a 6 month leave and made to work in a demanding office where your best is never good enough because the better you do the higher the bar next time. Then come back and complain about the wonderful job you have flying to different parts of the world and always having a new view out of your office window.

I have applied to BA and have an assessment coming up soon, I dream of getting a job there and sitting where you currently sit. Not because I don't like my current job flying a turbo prop but because I aspire to move up in my career and I personally (it's only my opinion!) want to work for the Leading UK carrier.

But after all that’s just my thoughts and I'm sure that they will be picked and moaned about by all reading this thread but I am all for the people working at the top getting there by hard work from the bottom of the pile, as you respect what you have more when you get there.

[Hand Solo]

Grunt - it's spelt whingers.

, particularly today when she is heading for a sunny destination and I am sitting in the cold, wet and wind of the North of England!

I'd have swapped your seat for mine on Friday night when it was blowing 60 kts across the hangars on finals!

and made to work in a demanding office where your best is never good enough because the better you do the higher the bar next time

I think you'll find many of them have. Or in a time critical production line. Or a city trading floor. The point is that people are suggesting you take the rose tinted glasses off and accept that BA has it's fair share of hassle just like any other company, and plenty that are unique. If you think it's some sort of Utopian world of long days off, leisurely flying and unlimited staff travel then you need to do a bit more research before the interview.

[grunt]

Thanks, are you an ex-kadet ?

[flaps to 60]

Carnage

the cadets have repayed BA considerably more than the cost of their ab-initio training through reduced salaries and cadet clawback over a five year period. Hardly my definition of free training.

You sound like an ex cadet that was taken on with an interest in management rather than aviating ( please prove me wrong).

Your above comment really grates with me as someone who paid £50,000 for their OWN training, instructed for years (refuelling, moving by hand and waiting for my C150 to warm up on a wet cold windy day is not alot of fun for crap money) and got a TP job starting on less than £20k a year and still waiting for a ROI. You if you are a cadet, you had your arse wiped for you the minute you got the job and didn't have to pay for anything. You even got a wage while training.

If you dont like the job move on and let the masses who want to work for BA have a chance.

If this is the attitude you have to the job then maybe you have to ask if you are a danger to yourself and your passengers. I want soemone whos's happy or at least content with thier job, at the front when im a passenger.

For the first 8 of your points you should have got up earlier......for the rest it is your responsibility as a pilot (Capt or FO) to ensure that they dont happen or turn them around when they do. Isn't that why you were taken on as a "Manager"

GE

I have done the 9-5 and would never go back to it for any amount of money. Just look at the suits as they walk onto your aircraft do they look happy? The best office in the world is that moving one above the clouds.

By the way to me and the majority of what i call real pilots its not just a job, its everything.

smelling burnt Jet A1 on a cold dark morning or bursting through the clouds into the sunshine.

The Commander has said it all really. If the above comment doesnt get you going then your in the wrong job. I've been in this game for 5 years now and i still get a stiffy thinking about it

Grunt

Well done im being interviewed shortly and hope to enjoy the benefits of working for BA also.

Re Heat

Im sure BA is saving money on this new programme but look at it from a 200hr guys point of view. Yes they have paid lots of money for a course but they starting out being paid much more than a TP f/o with the long term view to being paid well in the future. Plus they're getting a heavy jet rating and almost guaranteed job for life.

Couldn't agree more with your second point.

Good luck one and all i hope you find what your looking for soon before its to late

[Carnage Matey!]

Its good to see the lunatics crawl out of the woodwork at last. I didn't see I didn't like the job, just that I saw why some people didn't. Some people do leave, I know of one ex-cadet who resigned recently having become throroughly disillusioned with flying altogether. Anyone who sits back and says 'that could never happen to me' should reconsider.

I think Flaps to 60s remarks are somewhat ignorant and reveal his complete lack of knowledge of the cadet scheme.

you had your arse wiped for you the minute you got the job and didn't have to pay for anything

I seem to remember signing up to a commitment to pay back everything if I left early. I seem to remember signing up to receive a reduced salary for five years. I seem to remember the cost of the ab initio training was £55K but paying pack over £60K to BA. However I don't remember being paid a wage while training (no pay for 18 months) nor do I remember having my arse wiped for me.

If your criteria for a safe flight is someone happy and content in their job then perhaps you need to broaden your horizons because flying round in a 100 ton jet in windshear carrying 180 passengers landing on a runway you'd prefer not to and racing to meet an impossible schedule after a crap nights sleep is not conduicive to happy and content flying. In fact it makes me cack myself which is a very useful survival technique instead of being fat dumb and happy.

The rest of your critique again higlights how little you know about BA. The first 8 points are not solved by getting up earlier (unless you think I should come into work three days earlier before the long haul crews arrive). They are symptomatic of how the day goes wrong at BA before you've even started and how nobody in BA Flight Ops has the power to change or even influence the rest of the company which is hell bent on sending all our jobs down the drain. Carry on dreaming about getting to BA by all means, but listen to the many people who've joined from other airlines and tell you its not all its cracked up to be.

[expedite_climb]

Hmmmm...... anyone know how much interest I'd have to pay at the going rate on a 55K loan paid off over 5 years ???? Bet its a bit more than another 5K.....

[ManfredvonRichthofen]

generally speaking, all jobs are a royal pain in the arse a lot of the time. That's why you get paid !

I think some of the pilots (i'm not one) on here understandably get annoyed when they see non flyers saying how great it is to be an airline pilot without understanding the "daily grind" aspects of flying for a living. Its a "romantic" profession, at least in the minds of non airline pilots. That said, I think there is probably a grain of truth in the comments made by some on the "straight out of uni and into BA sponsorship" types (doesn't have to be BA mind).
Not cos you are sponsored as such, but because most of you will never have had another real job. working is a big (and unpleasant) wake up call after university/school, but you have to realise that no one airline or even profession has a monopoly on incompetent management, crappy hours, obnoxious "managers", infuriating clients/pax etc etc etc.
Even M Schumacher probably gets bored of hammering around at 200mph now and then.

[brain fade]

2B

Don't listen to the whinging tarts on this forum! They'd be whinging no matter what they did for a living. I'm sure there are many who've done little else!
Flying is a brilliant job but it does tick one off from time to time for a variety of reasons- anyone know a job that doesn't?
Whenever I am hacked off about anything I reflect on my (several) previous 'careers' Always cheers me up!
Some on this thread have mentioned that BA seem disinclined to emply folk who are passionate about flying/aircraft etc. That doesnt mean that all BA folk are indifferent though and many are clearly as 'passionate' about it as the next pilot.

If your'e looking for someone to talk you out of a career in aviation- it's not me!

Go for it

[Carnage Matey!]

So why don't you tell me what its like to land a 100 ton aircraft on when the crosswind component is up to 30kts, the autothrust can't handle it but you haven't had the option to practice your manual thrust handling skills for 6 months because the airline band it. And tell me how many degrees of pitch you have to play with on landing before you strike the tail. These threads always go the same way, with low hours turboprop FOs and wannabees telling the rest of us how they'd sell their own mothers to get into BA or Ryanair or anywhere else. Why don't you take a look at the BA DEP thread, where people who've already flown the big jets and got past the novelty stage (yes it does happen) discuss the genuine pros and cons of BA without naked ambition clouding their judgement.

I think richthofen makes a very good point about people not understanding the daily grind. Its very easy to spout on about how flying is the best job ever when 80% of your job is actually flying. Wait until its 20% and the remaining 80% is drudge and your opinion could rapidly change, especially if you haven't had a weekend off in the last 6 months. I know a couple of dedicated enthusiasts who worked there way up through instructing and regional aircraft to a BA command who are currently asking if its still all worth it.