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Old 4th May 2019, 16:37
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The tripping of weekend points will have little effect in my opinion. What is needed is for weekend points to actually count towards weekends off. That looks like it’s in the pipeline. I am no fan of the seniority based rostering but with some mechanisms built in to stop the abuse of the system it is probably one I would keep. It is not right that junior guys are working 3-4 days a month more to achieve the same credit.

Weekends are over rated. I am off today and it’s a nightmare, every man and his dog is out. Occasionally it’s nice to get the day off that you need though. Back to work for the rest of the weekend though
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Old 4th May 2019, 16:42
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Originally Posted by bex88
The tripping of weekend points will have little effect in my opinion. What is needed is for weekend points to actually count towards weekends off. That looks like it’s in the pipeline. I am no fan of the seniority based rostering but with some mechanisms built in to stop the abuse of the system it is probably one I would keep. It is not right that junior guys are working 3-4 days a month more to achieve the same credit.

Weekends are over rated. I am off today and it’s a nightmare, every man and his dog is out. Occasionally it’s nice to get the day off that you need though. Back to work for the rest of the weekend though
do you have kids ? Or a wife/gf that works 9-5 ?
If so, not having weekends off can be very damaging in the long run
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Old 4th May 2019, 17:09
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i personally think seniority works for some things, but not others. For instance, I think the points system we utilise for leave works very fairly. If you bid for unpopular leave periods you build up enough points such that you can bid for popular leave periods and expect to get them.

Similarly, I think seniority coupled with the freeze periods after a successful move, works well with PRIAM bidding for fleet and status.

I am not sure how well seniority works for bidding for monthly work though. A bidding system should exist, whereby pilots get some say over when they want to work and the kind of work they’d prefer, but the level of difference that being senior or junior makes is currently ridiculous with JSS. Bidline at least created lines of work in a generally fair work distribution, and you had to pick one that had what you wanted, but more often than not had something you weren’t so keen on in order to get it. That meant the senior pilot could be happy they got the line they wanted, whilst the junior guy wasn’t being well and truly shafted. Now it is very much the case that the senior pilots pick just what they want and the junior guys end up getting shafted. Generally people want to work as little as possible, so the senior guys achieve that, whilst the junior guys have as many trips as possible squeezed onto their lines. Then they get global constraints and crew repair to mess with their bid so that they can have even more work squeezed in. Couple that with the fact the junior guys are paid less, and it really isn’t a fair system at all.

A points system for working weekends needs to be points for avoiding working weekends, not for avoiding reserve. The amount of reserve the junior guys have to do is already way more than what the senior guys have to do. It won’t deter the senior guys from avoiding weekend work. Similarly with trips, there should be a requirement for the system to get everyone as close as possible to the average credit per trip over the year. Junior long haul pilots doing 50% more reports than senior pilots is wrong.
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Old 4th May 2019, 17:47
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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.
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Old 4th May 2019, 18:09
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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.
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Old 4th May 2019, 19:02
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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.
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Old 4th May 2019, 19:18
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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....
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Old 4th May 2019, 21:36
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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.
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Old 4th May 2019, 21:51
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Originally Posted by TheAirMission
Whats the situation with the BA BALPA pilots that hit the news with the racism email stuff?
Idiot alert 🙄
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Old 5th May 2019, 06:38
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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.

Last edited by wiggy; 5th May 2019 at 07:06.
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Old 5th May 2019, 06:54
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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.

Last edited by 3Greens; 5th May 2019 at 07:12.
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Old 5th May 2019, 07:34
  #6152 (permalink)  
 
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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.
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Old 5th May 2019, 07:35
  #6153 (permalink)  
 
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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.

Last edited by wiggy; 5th May 2019 at 08:03.
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Old 5th May 2019, 11:07
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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.
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Old 6th May 2019, 19:21
  #6155 (permalink)  
 
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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........



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Old 7th May 2019, 05:42
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"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.

Last edited by wiggy; 7th May 2019 at 06:08.
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Old 7th May 2019, 15:39
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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...
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Old 7th May 2019, 16:25
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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.
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Old 7th May 2019, 17:42
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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.
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Old 7th May 2019, 17:53
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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


Last edited by bex88; 7th May 2019 at 18:15.
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