Thomsonfly Pilots Is your Airline good to work for?
 

I'm looking to leave easyJet and one of my options may be to join you guys at Coventry as a direct entry capt.
Any views from existing Captains would be appreciated.

Who promised you Coventry? You won't get it, try Doncaster.

H n H,
Dont know about basing, but can say the company does try to get you where you want ASAP.
It would appear, in comparison to your current employer, the starting Cpt salary will be lower.
We do have though, PHI, family private medical cover, some interline agreements and IMHO good internal holiday discounts. The PHI in particular, I have been told, is very good and a similiar cover purchased from the High Street would cost £1000's PA.
New starters eventually going on to a defined benifit pension scheme.
Roster stability is very good, with block windows protection on all duties from your home base.
Day off payment for Cpt's £524. Hard to say how many DO payments you could earn. This season I will acheive about 15, declined about the same, probably about the average on the 737 fleet this season. There is a bidding system to sell days off, so the idea is that you still have some control over when you do and don't work.
Morale in my years at BY/TOM has always been good, and despite a hectic summer, still seems to be.
There is a lot of change at the moment with new fleets and expansion, which is always a worry, but all seems positive so far.
Very low staff turn over.

If you do want to move, find a mate in TOM to recommend you, and suposedly your application will then be fast tracked, and when you're checked to line your mate gets a £500 payment!

Hope this helps,
BB

or someone from the old squadron at least.

Glad to know nothing has changed here and their recruitment procedures are as fair and equal as always.:\

£500 is for F/O
Capt's get £750
and TRI/TRE's £1000

(Thats the employyee who gets it not the pilot joining!)

BB ;)

tom do advertise saying it is equal oputuni** blah blah blah and recomend a freind here is a 500 son nice one saved us time :cool:
pilot cum head hunters that is what we like :ok:

Gee - what tosh. Surely you are aware that every company in the modern world has employee recommendation schemes. All have to go through fair channels to comply with employment law - but it surely is natural to recruit someone that another can recommend than an unknown quantity?

Some people need to stop thinking of employers as charities, but as functioning businesses. Can you argue with a policy where a TRE recommends someone he has flown with before, if he thinks he is suitable? Surely a reduction in training risk as a result of a known quantity is in everyone's interest.

If you don't know anyone, then do some damn networking!

Well, that is so interesting to hear :cool:

I got an interview at TOM without knowing anyone inside the company. I even did the second assessment but did not get a job offer. But a good friend of mine did get the job but he has two friends within the company that recommended him. I guess that this matter could have something to do with it... :ugh:

But that is the business... :yuk:

The referral scheme was introduced only very recently.... Actually it has been brought in on the 13th of October of this year just in case someone wonders if having a mate inside could have made a difference.
Personally I knew nobody at all and certainly wasn't in the Squadron. On the other hand the friend I have recommended using the newly introduced scheme has been told that FO recruitment was now over (meeting all the requirements).
So what does it tell you ? Well that it is better to know no one than knowing me ;).

I believe that Easyjet has a similar "recommend a friend scheme" without the money though. Also I have seen a few application forms asking if you knew someone inside (CX if I recall correctly) so what would that be for ?

Sorry but the only exceptional things I see here, is that the company will pay us for bringing in a new pilot (alive I think). I can't really complain about that but I don't think I am going to make a fortune either.
So in conclusion what all that tells me, it is that we must be pretty desperate... Good news for all !

Hey, it´s not what you know, it´s who you know! :)

Well, I always wondered how close to the discrimination laws these applications sailed!

For example I believe it is also illegal to disciminate candidates on the grounds of ethnic origin, whether they are in a union etc.

Yet many UK airlines still ask on their app if you are in a union. I understand from BALPA that they are not legally allowed to ask this question as they may discriminate against you by your answer.

ie - you are in a union, they hate unions, you've no hope!
- You are in a union, don't mention it, they find out, you fail for putting a false answer!

I know this applies to one UK regional that recently had union recognition forced on them by the pilots in the face of great management hostility. BALPA told me they are looking into why they are still asking candidates about union membership.

So asking if you have a 'friend' that can recommend you is along the same lines. If it makes no difference to how they treat your application - and by law in the UK all applications must be treated equally - why bother asking until at the REFERENCE stage. If the company wants a recommendation then this is the stage to pursue it.

Talking about questions at interveiw.

Flybe ask if you have children!! If you do, you have no chance.

I would have thought it was the other way round. In the post-Jessica Starmer world of employing women pilots, if you are of child-bearing age and yet to have any, they probably wouldn't touch you with a bargepole.

They ask the male Pilots if they have children. Flybe knows that if you do, you are more likely to walk off the aircraft if your asked to fly another 4 sectors.

The company wants young single pilots that are still wet behind the ears. They don't want complainers like the 40 year old married man that has to go to a school parents evening each month and moans when they are shifted from one base to another.