binsleepen

Very well done Sir. I'll have a beer in your honour :ok:

Craggs

But don't forget that BA is dropping/has dropped other routes too! For example, on the 777 fleet the schedules to Kolkata (Calcutta, India) and Dhaka (Bangladesh) are being dropped entirely. Quite frankly, either of those would be better than Riyadh ..........

In any event, the overall plan is a reduction in routes, so I'm sorry to say that you shouldn't get your hopes to high when hearing about 'new' routes.

Not forgetting Mr B the 777 will be taking over MRU and one of the HKGs instead of CCU and DAC.

I shall believe it when I'm paying 5 quid a beer in Wanchai....
Back to the thread though....things don't seem to be as bad as BA originally were making out, mainly I suppose due to the fact that the oil price has halved. Sadly, our yields are also falling, but we are in a better state than a lot of our competitors. Unofficially, I wouldn't be surprised to see some movement in the next financial year. That is my personal opinion only.
It wouldn't take much to push a lot of airlines over the edge. We may find that in January, LH or VS are expanding rapidly at LHR which would create jobs at the expense of BA.

I'm with hunterboys opinion re BA on this one. I think the halving of oil prices has caused a lot of real emergency plans to be reconsidered. I'm quietly optimistic about getting a call next year. In the mean time I'm still flying full aircraft around on my current job, I think their is more pain to come, but its also going to be a 'last man standing' situation - those airlines still in business at the end of this will reap rewards because capacity will be hugely reduced so yields should increase. (i'm already seeing this - try booking a package holiday for next year - no deals to many desitinations as their is limited flight capacity in the market)

I'm not sure about the LH or VS thing though - any expansion for them at LHR is likely to be due to one or other of them aquiring BMI (LH are rumoured to be considering selling BMI to VS) and any 'jobs' created, in reality will just be the existing BMI employees having a new name on their payslip.

Anyhoo just my tuppenceworth, and I shall keep treading water in the pool. Still more than happy to have met the grade to get into the pool to be honest - everything that happens now is outside of my control.

Nothing new to say except Happy new year to all of those in the pool and the others of course and to bring back this thread from page 3 to page 1...

Shall 2009 not be as bad as predicted !

Cheers to all

Well lets hope they extend the hold pool time. I run out in just over 2 months. I asked Santa for a course date but maybe I had been bad this year.

Although I understand there must be bigger concerns, I cannot believe a hold-pool doesn't merit a second thought. There is some money invested there (maybe not a lot) so I would be surprised if it doesn't get looked at. As it is a "self-induced" limit there cannot be much to decide. Either extend or don't.

Anyway, maybe that is just wishful thinking and we really have all but been forgotten!!

goaround:

my thoughts are (this is just my musings - nothing to back this up) is that if BA think that they may recruit again within the 6-12 month timescale then they will extend the holdpool. If, however, they suspect there will be no recruitment for say 3-5 years then they will disband the holdpool and start again when they need to.
As optimistic as i'm being, the past record of how long recruitment has been in abeyence during recessions plus the severity of this downturn (we still aint seen nothing yet according to many commentators) leads me to believe the latter will be the case.

Add to that the fact that the Pilot Recruitment Manager now has a different post and, to the best of my limited knowledge, has not been replaced in the recruitment role would seem to suggest that things are likely to remain fairly stagnant. Again, just my non-informed musings.

I thought for quite a while about posting this as I wouldn't want to plant false hope but here goes..!

I had a conversation with a very senior manager at BA last week before I went on a long haul trip. A nice guy who is perfectly approachable (esp for a manager!) and he was pretty keen to talk to some crews. Anyway, we asked him about the future for the company and the bit you guys will be interested in is that he reckoned that the company would be short of pilots again "by next summer, probably".

We (the crew) discussed this later and all agreed that we hadn't misheard him. Our managers are usually the harbringers of doom but he seemed pretty optimistic really. Anyway, don't get all your hopes up guys but perhaps things may start moving sooner than you think. We have several 777s to staff next year and, although they will probably all be internal, perhaps the airbus will become drained somewhat as a result.

Good luck to all of you guys and gals regardless.

Set 18,

Thanks for that, I am definately a glass half full type of guy. When you say next summer do you mean 2009 or 2010.

Happy New Year to all

Still sleepen while swimmin

By all means be optimistic, however....

Managers are not psychic. I firmly believe BA will have two plans. One will be for a 'rosy' financial 2009. One will be for a 'dire' 2009.

One will be a plan of modest expansion. One will be a plan of further capacity reductions. Sure, the current price of oil helps, but a proportion is hedged at a historically high price.

The economy looks rather depressed for next year. Who knows how the chips will fall?

In the last few days, I have heard 'speculative' reports - from 'managers' - that the annual 'Postings and Promotions' process could be suspended.

Let's hope for the best!

Sorry if it was amibiguous; he was talking about this summer (2009) as the conversation took place just before the new year!!!

Good luck to you all.

I see BA have placed an advert on their website for cabin crew today. Any thoughts?

BinSleepen

I reckon they might be short of Cabin Crew :ok::O

Flt Attendant
 

Maybe I should become a Flight Attendant while waiting to be pulled out of the holding pool. They need competent swimmers.... have I demonstrated that while swimming in the Hold Pool?

A colleague’s wife has just been given a start date ( Cabin crew ) for a fixed term contract starting in March. Her course was cancelled last November due to ‘economical reasons’ I am not sure if that’s a direct quote or what she believes to be the reason for the course cancellation.

There is movement afoot which can only be a good thing…. I will keep swimming.

Bail Out,

I would keep treading water, the new 'contract' Cabin Crew are the ones the company hopes will oust the BASSA 'Old Guard'.

Have a read of the 'Project Columbus' thread on the Duckies forum to get an idea of what might be cooking.

On a piloting side we are still taking new A320's at the moment, and very shiny they are too!

This first quarter should be very, very interesting!

Sorry guys, I don't wish to rain on anybody's parade don't get your hopes up just because the Cabin Crew side of the operation is recruiting.

For all sorts of cunning reasons BA are employing a large number of Cabin Crew on temporary (11 month) contracts and letting them go at the end of the contract period so unlike Flight Ops, In Flight Services (aka our Cabin Crew Department) need to continually recruit.