BA - lifestyle and work/life balance
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You know what the real problem is 4468? too many people are never happy, with anything.
they get a command on a 320 at 28 years old with one of the biggest and most successful companies in europe and they are not happy.
they get into BA with a real nice package and still not happy because of seniority stagnation/lonely life on the longhaul/fatiguing commute/too much flying on the shorthaul.
I hear it all the time and, frankly, had enough of it.
this thread doesn t look too useful anymore, and because its seems to be comparing mostly 3-4 of the best companies of the world let s just be thankful and enjoy what we have, and give opinions on useful matters!
just my 2 cents, happy flying!
they get a command on a 320 at 28 years old with one of the biggest and most successful companies in europe and they are not happy.
they get into BA with a real nice package and still not happy because of seniority stagnation/lonely life on the longhaul/fatiguing commute/too much flying on the shorthaul.
I hear it all the time and, frankly, had enough of it.
this thread doesn t look too useful anymore, and because its seems to be comparing mostly 3-4 of the best companies of the world let s just be thankful and enjoy what we have, and give opinions on useful matters!
just my 2 cents, happy flying!
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Great last 2 posts. Because money's a number, people can always measure it and compare.
Only point I'd add is that BA has now has less complainers as a result of more recruitment from those who've spent a fair amount of time at other airlines.
Only point I'd add is that BA has now has less complainers as a result of more recruitment from those who've spent a fair amount of time at other airlines.
Wilco big boy but how you think two FOs would fly together I don't know.
i understand there is no commuting contract offered by BA.
can someone who actually knows explain how they manage to commute from other countries ie.do you book some leave every month and try and join some days off?
how does it work with the random roster and choosing you days to work so that you come up with a roster with enough days to commute?
thank you
can someone who actually knows explain how they manage to commute from other countries ie.do you book some leave every month and try and join some days off?
how does it work with the random roster and choosing you days to work so that you come up with a roster with enough days to commute?
thank you
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Black and Brown - please could you stop posting along your current theme. You are just as hypocritical as those you accuse, as clearly demonstrate by your stab at London in your last post.
Let's put the petty argument to bed and get back on the thread topic please.
Given the large number of posts and viewers of this thread it is clearly one of interest. Like me, I am sure many people would like to see it continue that way.
Let's put the petty argument to bed and get back on the thread topic please.
Given the large number of posts and viewers of this thread it is clearly one of interest. Like me, I am sure many people would like to see it continue that way.
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Not so sure it weeds all tools out Goldcup. I seem to remember several chaps who were refused a command at eJ (for very good reasons) but managed to slip into BA....and you're welcome to them..
You sure you don't want to take BlackandBrown? As I hope I don't see him on my roster
You sure you don't want to take BlackandBrown? As I hope I don't see him on my roster
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It's the only long haul trip the Airbus fleet do, and you have to be specifically trained to fly the A318 for the steep approach into LCY which means BA only train a small group of pilots. In essence the A318 is a sub-fleet of the main Airbus fleet. There's nothing special about it (despite what the boys will tell you as they wave their fancy silver lanyards ;-) ) but I suppose there's novelty involved if it gets you out of Europe a couple of times each month.
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Stable Checked.
Commuting on the Airbus just needs a bit of pre planning. Firstly live near a BA destination with 7+ daily flights like GVA, CDG, NCE, LIN, BCN. Then bid for 5 day trips. If you get the odd stand alone day you can try to drop them using your credit bank, or trade them with other pilots. Budget about £3k / year staff travel costs which is mostly APD these days. You should only have 4 commutes a month. You will probably have to stay in a hotel 3 times as long trips either start too early or end too late to commute that day. Report late and youre dead!
On long haul, commuting is simple. At LGW on 737 commuting would be very difficult as mostly day trips these days and Carmen bidding is run by bloke that hates pilots!
Enjoy the sun, live the life, fly BA. Got to beat the desert any day.
Commuting on the Airbus just needs a bit of pre planning. Firstly live near a BA destination with 7+ daily flights like GVA, CDG, NCE, LIN, BCN. Then bid for 5 day trips. If you get the odd stand alone day you can try to drop them using your credit bank, or trade them with other pilots. Budget about £3k / year staff travel costs which is mostly APD these days. You should only have 4 commutes a month. You will probably have to stay in a hotel 3 times as long trips either start too early or end too late to commute that day. Report late and youre dead!
On long haul, commuting is simple. At LGW on 737 commuting would be very difficult as mostly day trips these days and Carmen bidding is run by bloke that hates pilots!
Enjoy the sun, live the life, fly BA. Got to beat the desert any day.
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It was mentioned earlier in the thread that a BA pilot is contracted to work 1045 credit hours a year. Does that equate to roughly 1045 duty hours a year?
If not would someone be kind enough to elaborate on the range of duty hours one could expect to work. (1045 duty hours a year seems very reasonable!)
I recently received good news following BA selection and so am now in the fortunate position to make the decision on whether to take the job.
Crunch time for me and my family. The more info people are able and willing to offer the better (and is much appreciated).
Cheers.
FLR
If not would someone be kind enough to elaborate on the range of duty hours one could expect to work. (1045 duty hours a year seems very reasonable!)
I recently received good news following BA selection and so am now in the fortunate position to make the decision on whether to take the job.
Crunch time for me and my family. The more info people are able and willing to offer the better (and is much appreciated).
Cheers.
FLR
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Not wishing to rain on Stable's parade, but the chance of getting one of the commuter lines (4 x 5-day tours) as a junior Airbus FO are nil; I should know, I bid for them! You'll need to factor in nights at LHR between trips, but still possible to block your work to achieve this. PLenty of guys rnt a commuter room for a couple of hundred quid a month to cover those night stops.
Perfectly do-able, but be aware that it'll not be as simple as suggested.
Perfectly do-able, but be aware that it'll not be as simple as suggested.
FLR-Credited hours
Put simply a credited hour is the same as a flying hour. Quite why BA have 1045 and not 900 defeats me right now but no matter. 12 months at 87 hours a month.
Every time you fly you get either the flying time or the time away divided by 4 whichever is the greater, added to your roster for the current month. To even things up if your trip is a short one, which essentially isn't your fault-someone has to do them, BA add 'credit' so that things even out. This is worked out on a formula 'real time divided by 4'. (I'm pretty rusty on this but bear with me as you have the gist here).
EG. Trip to New York and back =~15 hours flying. But because the service that you're operating isn't daily but twice a week, this trip is a 5 day trip and not the usual 3 days. So rostering will give you either flying hours (15) or real time from base back to base (check in:1000 Monday-clear:0600 Friday, 92/4=23) whichever is greater. You will get 23 hours credited to your roster to make up your monthly total of (say) 87 hours. Simulator/SEP/standby all attract credited hours. (4.5 hours each IIRC)
This way you can't do 87 hours in the saddle AND two sims and an SEP all in one month. Leave attracts credit for the days you're off to add up to your monthly total too. Remember this roster is an incentive bidline system. Don't do the work and you don't get the pay-simple. The hours credit that you accrue goes towards your monthly total. Go over the top and you can 'bank' the hours and perhaps do a little less work next month or whenever you wish to withdraw from the bank and still earn full money.
Not too difficult a concept to understand so if you're having difficulty it must be because it's been poorly explained!
S
Every time you fly you get either the flying time or the time away divided by 4 whichever is the greater, added to your roster for the current month. To even things up if your trip is a short one, which essentially isn't your fault-someone has to do them, BA add 'credit' so that things even out. This is worked out on a formula 'real time divided by 4'. (I'm pretty rusty on this but bear with me as you have the gist here).
EG. Trip to New York and back =~15 hours flying. But because the service that you're operating isn't daily but twice a week, this trip is a 5 day trip and not the usual 3 days. So rostering will give you either flying hours (15) or real time from base back to base (check in:1000 Monday-clear:0600 Friday, 92/4=23) whichever is greater. You will get 23 hours credited to your roster to make up your monthly total of (say) 87 hours. Simulator/SEP/standby all attract credited hours. (4.5 hours each IIRC)
This way you can't do 87 hours in the saddle AND two sims and an SEP all in one month. Leave attracts credit for the days you're off to add up to your monthly total too. Remember this roster is an incentive bidline system. Don't do the work and you don't get the pay-simple. The hours credit that you accrue goes towards your monthly total. Go over the top and you can 'bank' the hours and perhaps do a little less work next month or whenever you wish to withdraw from the bank and still earn full money.
Not too difficult a concept to understand so if you're having difficulty it must be because it's been poorly explained!
S
Last edited by Sygyzy; 4th Sep 2011 at 18:51.
Nicely explained sygyzy
AFAIK I think it is because as you and BA Baracas rightly say leave, Duty Free weeks, Ground Training etc also attract monthly credit. If you then had an annual 900 credited hours limit in place then BA couldn't get you working up to anything like 900 flying hours, which is obviously what they are most interested in.
Or, put it another way: 900 flying hours + leave+ DFW + GTdays = approx 1045 credited hours, plus or minus.
That's probably BS but I hope at least the explanation makes sense.
Put simply a credited hour is the same as a flying hour. Quite why BA have 1045 and not 900 defeats me right now but no matter. 12 months at 87 hours a month.
Or, put it another way: 900 flying hours + leave+ DFW + GTdays = approx 1045 credited hours, plus or minus.
That's probably BS but I hope at least the explanation makes sense.
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Thanks for the info.
So typically how many duty hours a week or month or year could I expect to do long or short haul?
I appreciate it depends on bidding etc etc but can anyone offer any ball park figures?
So typically how many duty hours a week or month or year could I expect to do long or short haul?
I appreciate it depends on bidding etc etc but can anyone offer any ball park figures?
FLR-duty hours
I suspect that one of the reasons that your query isn't being answered directly-or promptly-is because nobody really knows.
For a shorthaul trip LHR-AMS-LHR duty hours will be flight time+ ~a couple of hours. From my previous example LHR-JFK-LHR, a 3 calendar day trip away from base for 48 hours, again ACTUAL duty hours will be flight time + a few hours. Same duty hours if it's a 5 day trip with 92 hours away from base, but you will be compensated/won't be penalised for being away from home longer.
Ad hoc ground duties (great definition-wish I'd thought of that), typically a sim duty will be ~6-8 actual/real/duty hours for which you'll get 4.5 hours credit. A whole day doing SEP/medical will be longer real/duty hours but the same credit. 12 hours of standby duty-4.5 hours of credit, and so on. It will still bugger up pretty much your whole day whichever way you cut it so people tend to look at how much each trip/duty will contribute towards the total monthly needed rather than duty hours. I'm sure there's a weekly/monthly/yearly never to exceed duty hour total but I've no idea what that is-somebody on here must know.
Real flying hours count 1 for1 so the secret would be to go for everything that is a quick out and back, live in Stanwell, go to work on a pushbike and simply chain it to a trolley at T5. Now...count up the extra non duty hours going back and forth to work in your time and you can perhaps see the benefit of doing a few nightstops and getting your bar bill paid by the company (Allowances are paid for each/every trip at £X.XX p/h base to base or similar~reasonable wonga per 24 hour day) and getting the extra credit (see JFK example in previous post) added to your monthly accrual, with just one trip to T5.
I'm not really up to speed on the way the current bidline works, but people seem to think that in S/H you'll do ~18-23 days work, (or more correctly days in which work intrudes into your life at some point) and maybe slightly less in L/H. I stand to be corrected on this, but remember this is all ruled by seniority. The great thing about bidline is that some soppy roster clerk can't just add standbys to your roster cos he's had a missive from on high/doesn't like crew that you have to work 23/31 when there's no actual work uncovered.
So in answer your question-how many duty hours in a year? No idea.
S
For a shorthaul trip LHR-AMS-LHR duty hours will be flight time+ ~a couple of hours. From my previous example LHR-JFK-LHR, a 3 calendar day trip away from base for 48 hours, again ACTUAL duty hours will be flight time + a few hours. Same duty hours if it's a 5 day trip with 92 hours away from base, but you will be compensated/won't be penalised for being away from home longer.
Ad hoc ground duties (great definition-wish I'd thought of that), typically a sim duty will be ~6-8 actual/real/duty hours for which you'll get 4.5 hours credit. A whole day doing SEP/medical will be longer real/duty hours but the same credit. 12 hours of standby duty-4.5 hours of credit, and so on. It will still bugger up pretty much your whole day whichever way you cut it so people tend to look at how much each trip/duty will contribute towards the total monthly needed rather than duty hours. I'm sure there's a weekly/monthly/yearly never to exceed duty hour total but I've no idea what that is-somebody on here must know.
Real flying hours count 1 for1 so the secret would be to go for everything that is a quick out and back, live in Stanwell, go to work on a pushbike and simply chain it to a trolley at T5. Now...count up the extra non duty hours going back and forth to work in your time and you can perhaps see the benefit of doing a few nightstops and getting your bar bill paid by the company (Allowances are paid for each/every trip at £X.XX p/h base to base or similar~reasonable wonga per 24 hour day) and getting the extra credit (see JFK example in previous post) added to your monthly accrual, with just one trip to T5.
I'm not really up to speed on the way the current bidline works, but people seem to think that in S/H you'll do ~18-23 days work, (or more correctly days in which work intrudes into your life at some point) and maybe slightly less in L/H. I stand to be corrected on this, but remember this is all ruled by seniority. The great thing about bidline is that some soppy roster clerk can't just add standbys to your roster cos he's had a missive from on high/doesn't like crew that you have to work 23/31 when there's no actual work uncovered.
So in answer your question-how many duty hours in a year? No idea.
S