BA Direct Entry Pilot.

[3Greens]

Originally Posted by Smooth Airperator

Probably a very ignorant question but how hard can it be to put to vote the following concept?

Seniority rules for only 50% worth of weekend work. The other 50% is random.

Because some some of us worked every weekend when we were junior too. It’s not a JSS problem, it was the same with bidline too. I’m sorry, but BA is seniority driven, and it takes time to get the rewards. If you want everything now, you’ve joined the wrong airline.

[GS-Alpha]

I don’t think anyone wants everything now, and you’re wrong, being junior under JSS is not the same as being junior under bidline back when you or I were junior. Not even close.

[wiggy]

Originally Posted by 3Greens

Because some some of us worked every weekend when we were junior too. It’s not a JSS problem, it was the same with bidline too.

Agreed, and I'm afraid I'm going to be controversial GS-Alpha because I certainly do remember working every weekend outside of leave for well over 6 months, maybe a year, as a junior Long Haul P1- Bidine, Blindline holder. The only solution I could find was to transition to the Aspirational part time contract....FWIW I still work most weekends in a Full Time Month and of course clobber a weekend during a Part Time Month...IMHO that goes with the territory to some extent but there were some very naive expectations being expressed in the run up to the introduction in JSS, such as " I won't have to work weekends anymore" from someone who had been in the company just over a year..

That said I'm not of the opiion it is fair to inflict perpetual weekend working on the junior, I really am not..

As for the new weekend points system...I think it was set up to make it appear at least something was being done by offering some sort of incentive.... but the link to Reserve Vulnerability rather than weekend work vulnerability was done because (IMHO) the company will be very reluctant to add another clashing/blocking tool by allowing points to be swapped for weekends off.. Given how much BA hates people being able to clash/block work ( part of the reason Bidline went)I was pleasantly surprised that BALPA managed to negotiate the Golden Days....

[GS-Alpha]

Back in the day, junior pilots did indeed tend to do low credit two man trips over weekends, plus some time assignable days to get them somewhere near a credit protected CAP. Under JSS, junior pilots are doing low credit trips over weekends, plus a couple more trips. 6 long haul trips in a month did not happen for junior pilots in days of old. Weekend working is to be expected because two sevenths of our work is over weekends. However it is wrong that senior pilots can do 4 trips with time in the bunk to help with the fatigue, whilst junior pilots are doing 6 trips because the credit system deems that to be the same amount of work.

[A340Yumyum]

Originally Posted by TheAirMission

Whats the situation with the BA BALPA pilots that hit the news with the racism email stuff?

Idiot alert 🙄

[wiggy]

Originally Posted by GS-Alpha

Back in the day, junior pilots did indeed tend to do low credit two man trips over weekends, plus some time assignable days to get them somewhere near a credit protected CAP. Under JSS, junior pilots are doing low credit trips over weekends, plus a couple more trips. 6 long haul trips in a month did not happen for junior pilots in days of old. Weekend working is to be expected because two sevenths of our work is over weekends. However it is wrong that senior pilots can do 4 trips with time in the bunk to help with the fatigue, whilst junior pilots are doing 6 trips because the credit system deems that to be the same amount of work.

I thought we were starting on occasions to see to six trips a month on some lines in relatively recent "days of old" under Bidline and Roster assign/FA but I'm probably wrong.

Obviously you need some way of quantifying work done, but doing it by perhaps simply by looking at number of reports ex-base would open up a whole new can of worms.; on the T7 for example if you go down that road the senior might opt for, say, 5 or 6 TLV 2 day trips, per month, leaving them lots of days off, whilst OTOH the junior would struggle to fill their lines with the longer trips...and how for example do you propose to quantify the single report at base 9 day SIN/SYD/SIN which is on the T7? That can be a real nasty in terms of fatigue and funnily enough often doesn't go massively senior in the bidding, either under Bidline or JSS...

I'd agree "something must be done" to alleviate the problems some are facing but I'm not sure what the solution is, perhaps seeding junior rosters with a "heavy trip"? That of course would takes us back to something that was done in those "days of old...." and back to a fairness element of a system that many people seemed to be very unhappy with and voted to get rid of.

I suspect ultimately the solution lies in addressing the amount of "output" the company thinks is reasonable, there is only so much that can be gained by tinkering with JSS.

[3Greens]

Originally Posted by GS-Alpha

I don’t think anyone wants everything now, and you’re wrong, being junior under JSS is not the same as being junior under bidline back when you or I were junior. Not even close.

how so then? Because your post made me doubt myself so I had a look at my logbook from 1999 when I joined. Seems very similar actually. Every weekend worked. 4 reserves a year. 790 hours. And 5 east coasts a month the norm. Few months with
5 trips and two sims.
Took me about 3 years to achieve a couple of weekends a month off. Average hours were maybe a tad less I grant you that. But not a huge amount.
We ahve only had 4 JSS months so I’d say it’s too early to make a massive call on it. Although, I’m not sure I agree with you when you say there’s a massive difference in what the junior are doing now. I think we tend to look back on careers with rose tinted glasses. As said above, a quick trawl on iBid of the last year reveals quite a few lines with 6 trips due FA on them.
i do however think there needs to be a limit on work done though. 5 LH 3 month is probably the limit imo. Unfortunately, BA have found they can sweat the assets so I don’t see it changing soon.

[hunterboy]

I think part of the problem is that our rostering system has been brought into the 21st Century. The ability of computer power to “optimise” rosters was never available before, which meant “inefficient “ rosters as far as the company were concerned. Or extra time off as far as pilots were concerned.
It is a pity that optimise meant different things depending on whether you were BA or a pilot.

[wiggy]

Originally Posted by 3Greens

how so then? Because your post made me doubt myself so I had a look at my logbook from 1999 when I joined. Seems very similar actually. Every weekend worked. 4 reserves a year. 790 hours. And 5 east coasts a month the norm. Few months with
5 trips and two sims.

Sounds about right - I joined a while before you ( 747 then 744)....during the early years if the trips weren't long on Time Away from base/low low earning (nil box payments and allowances in soft non convertible currency, multiple weekends away from home) then they were trips involving bouncing across the Atlantic multiple times a month.

It has pretty much always been pants (in relative terms), one way or another, at the bottom of a seniority list...on one fleet (744) it was mitigated by seeding the Blindlines with a "decent" trip...(e.g. HRE or GRU), and what saddens me is it appeared around the time of the ballot that many thought getting rid of Bidline would be the answer to all their problems..

Now, we've done "The four Yorkshiremen" ... do we need to think about trying a look on "The Bright Side". Maybe somebody can come up with a solution to weekend working that doesn't drop everybody in the muck...I reckon setting a flying hours target of 750 a year would be a start and might get JSS working as advertised pre-ballot..fat chance of that.

[GS-Alpha]

I thought we were starting on occasions to see to six trips a month on some lines in relatively recent "days of old" under Bidline and Roster assign/FA but I'm probably wrong.

You are not wrong, but I’m not sure I’d call bidline with FA, the days of old. It was a temporary alleviation to the rules. In the same way that a year or so of hanging about for an hour waiting for a bus from the aircraft to the car park prepared us well for the one hour it tends to take to get from chocks on at T5 to the car park, a few years of FA prepared us well for JSS. Quite clever of BA really. 5 trips a month is busy but doable, and is probably a fair price for being junior, but 6 trips a month is a recipe for serious fatigue in my opinion. Bidline used to have a rule where if you had 5 trips but were not at CAP at stage 1, you could drop as many of them as you liked with the hope of getting closer to CAP with the 5 trips you might pick up at stage 2. I presume the intention there was that 6 trips a month was a bit much. I agree that if you set a max 5 trips or adjusted credit for shorter trips, the senior guys would then switch to picking up 5 of the shortest trips and leave junior guys with 5 long trips. Hence why I stated that a seniority system for monthly bidding doesn’t really work very fairly. I’m all for there being some advantage to being senior, but the advantages are way too high.

Introducing some kind of points system for weekends is an attempt to remove the seniority advantage for that element of monthly bidding. Messing about with inhibitors is an attempt to do away with the seniority advantages there also. We seem to be attempting to use a strict seniority system with a load of sticky plasters. It is true that the BALPA members voted for JSS. When 50% of the pilots are more senior than the others, and many of those in the bottom half recognise they will be in the top half by the time the system comes in, funnily enough, it gets voted in - particularly when tied to a paydeal, it doesn’t mean it is a good system for the guys in the bottom portion.

I know plenty of people who are refusing commands purely because they don’t want to give up the huge lifestyle advantages afforded be being senior.

[Snowflack]

Plus one to working every weekend when junior, first on short haul, as an FO, then again long haul, a glance at my log book shows the delightful 183/182 combo 4 times in a row, admittedly the 3rd was allocated from TASS, but today’s snowflakes would be at the priory after that!

JSS is rubbish, I didn’t vote for it, and those did are stupid for following BALPAs advice, give the promise of a free gift in their packet of cereals and pilots will vote for anything.

But JSS is not the problem, it’s the people that promote themselves into a command, then moan about working weekends, like they didn’t know and the people who join a seniority based company, with 34 pay points then moan about it. Those people are the problem!

I wanna be a Captain.......... but I shouldn’t, have to work weekends, poor me........

[wiggy]

"a glance at my log book shows the delightful 183/182 combo 4 times in a row"..

That's nasty..very very nasty.... for those going take a quick look at the timings of the BA183/182 (available on an Internet near you) and translate it into UK time/UK body clock timing.

[BA_Baracas]

I’ve been with BA for quite a while now.
I’ve had the best 22 odd years of my life. Great people to work with, going to great places round the world. I really have had a ball.

JSS has changed all of that. If you’re junior you’re going to work every weekend, every month, doing a lot of the most fatiguing trips available with minimum days off. And that’s just long haul, I can’t speak for short haul.

Anyone applying, just bear that in mind...

[Twiglet1]

Originally Posted by wiggy

"a glance at my log book shows the delightful 183/182 combo 4 times in a row"..

That's nasty..very very nasty.... for those going take a quick look at the timings of the BA183/182 (available on an Internet near you) and translate it into UK time/UK body clock timing.

That's pretty grim deep night into an early. Previous life did a sleep study on a (longer) night into day rotation - classic 18-30hr rest period but in fact it worked a treat - quick 4hrs when you arrive, force yourself up and enjoy a night based on you local TZ get up and fly home.
OK you do get two shots at a sleep but my (in-experienced) view would be the sleepy scientists would have a field day with that trip.
Looks good on paper I can roster anything job.

[BitMoreRightRudder]

JSS is rubbish, I didn’t vote for it, and those did are stupid for following BALPAs advice, give the promise of a free gift in their packet of cereals and pilots will vote for anything.

Total bollocks. Not why anyone voted for JSS. Feel free to rewrite history for your “I told you so moment” but it’s not why JSS is here. If you’re that clever sort our the pay mess will you? Nah, didn’t think so.

[bex88]

Snowflack: “those that promote themselves into a command?” Nobody promotes themselves. They get the opportunity to prove they can meet the required standard. It’s a good job somebody will take a SH command because just imagine how many course failures there would be if we were dragging long term SFO’s from LH to SH LHS against their will.

Ryanair has it right. Seniority based on the day you join. Seniority as a captain based on the date you pass your command upgrade. It would solve the problem we have regarding SH command

[Mylius]

Originally Posted by bex88

Ryanair has it right. Seniority based on the day you join. Seniority as a captain based on the date you pass your command upgrade. It would solve the problem we have regarding SH command

All very well at an airline with one fleet where all the work is the same, of course....

[wiggy]

.Ryanair has it right. Seniority based on the day you join. Seniority as a captain based on the date you pass your command upgrade. It would solve the problem we have regarding SH command

It depends what exactly you think the "problem" is but I suspect such a scheme might have consequences for those who join or who have joined BA hoping for a fast SH command

In passing just an observation that I think might be worth making to avoid any tendency to stereotype parts of the BA workforce:

Over the years at BA there have been more than a handful of "long term" Long Haul Co-pilots who have successfully gone to Short Haul for a command by way of a Command conversion.

[The Blu Riband]

Originally Posted by bex88

Snowflack: “those that promote themselves into a command?”

You know what he meant; don't be difficult.

You joined BA late, got an early short haul command, and now can't stop moaning about the BA / seniority system.
Get over it!

[bex88]

The Blu Ridband. Wrong, wrong and the seniority system is fine as a concept but the delivery of it is not. Since you know me send me a email and I will happily meet you to give you the facts surrounding my position. You are probably misinformed as many are and I don’t blame you for that. Email is just the standard BA one.

wiggy, quite correct. It is one of the most challenging courses RHS LH to LHS SH. If you are not committed to it, it will be a much greater ask than it is. It’s the attitude of guys I have flown with that gets me. The system as I said is fine but the attitude of a minority shows a lack of compassion or empathy and in some cases a spiteful enjoyment. Re reading I should have worded my point better.