Hi Big Easy

All Virgin Flight Crew are LHR based (at the moment!!)

cheers

FC

Do I get to keep my 3 stripes at Virgin or do I lose em like BA:)

sorry mate, 2 stripes for the first 2 years!!!!

I'm sure thats not a big deal for you though!!:):)

Quote: " All Virgin Flight Crew are LHR based (at the moment!!)"

but the Boeing Guys and Gals do operate ex LGW and MAN too. In fact the bulk of the 744 operation is ex- LGW

CB

Yes, that is true cyber bob but the crux of it is in the word 'based'

brgds

FC

FC, could you please check your PM. Thank you.

"Yes, that is true cyber bob but the crux of it is in the word 'based'"

Based at LHR yes, but the crux of it is really where you operate from!. As far as I'm aware there are no additional benefits (with VS) from being based at LHR !!

That was an aside, believe the recruitment is to cover Airbus namely A330 and these littles beauties and as far as I'm aware, won't be operating ex - LHR.!

Cheers
CB

So the recruitment is to cover the 330 at LHR, I thought VS were opening Manchester as a 330 base? Anyone any ideas what the year 1 F/O Jonny 2 stripes gets paid per month i.e. take home? And before some clever dick says 'do a search', I've done plenty and got no up to date information. Cheers

Whether you fly the B747-400, A340 or A330 as things stand at the moment you would be LHR based...

Whether you actually fly from there is another matter!!!

The B747-400 is operated from LHR, LGW, MAN and GLA
The A340-300/600 is operated from LHR
The A330-300 will be (today's plan) from LGW, MAN

As to what new recruits go onto?? well who knows but suspect the A330... so i hope you enjoy MCO as you will see an awful lot of the place in the first year or 2!!!!! :}:}

hope that helps

FC

Hey FC

Same wavelength


Whether you fly the B747-400, A340 or A330 as things stand at the moment you would be LHR based... - TRUE

Whether you actually fly from there is another matter!!! - SO TRUE!

The B747-400 is operated from LHR, LGW, MAN and GLA - TRUE
The A340-300/600 is operated from LHR - TRUE
The A330-300 will be (today's plan) from LGW, MAN - TRUE + GLA (OR WAS THAT YESTERDAY'S PLAN?)

As to what new recruits go onto?? well who knows but suspect the A330... so i hope you enjoy MCO as you will see an awful lot of the place in the first year or 2!!!!! http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...s/badteeth.gifhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...s/badteeth.gif - YOU AIN'T KIDDIN'

CB :ok:

...only TR can apply? thanks

Any info on salary, rostering, commuting.

Appreciated, thanks Tatin

rubbish, worse than Rubbish and a pain in the behind!!!:E

time to command??

Search function??

FliegerTiger,

Like the others I have failed to find any kind of current salary and roster examples, all previous information is now dated by several years!

Any info appreciated?

VS Redundancy Policy
 

I'm not a 'glass half empty' person, but I'd appreciate any info about the redundancy package from people who have either taken voluntary redundancy or been made redundant from VS.

Why would you want to know the redundancy policy?

They're hiring, not firing.

Essentially though, it's LIFO with various other measures, performance, sickness, disciplinary etc. thrown in to make it legally compliant.

Last voluntary redundees walked away with £40k plus for only 2 years service.

''Why would you want to know the redundancy policy?'''

Beacause they have had mass redundancies twice in the last eight years perhaps? A prospective employee with a realistic outlook!

Are the A330s basically filler for the absent/delayed 787s? What is the latest estimate for the 787s to arrive (plus a few more years)?

Also, curious as to the neg statement about MCO. I assume the A330s will replace the 744s on those flights. Is it the monotony of that flying that is the point here? How is different from other trans Atlantic flying? I would think MCO beats a cold and dank Winter day in MAN - right? Although the summers would be bloody hot. Please share your thoughts about that type of flying.

I would assume it has more to do with the fact that MCO will no doubt be done 2 crew. 8.5 hours heading west with only the 2 of you doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun. The yanks do it with 3 as per FAA regs.

So who are VS aiming at? Will they get the desired widebody 'bus experience with a UK issued ATPL??

One of the prerequisites is a JAA Licence which must be UK issued. If you don't have one, then the electronic application terminates you there and then. Ideally A330/A340 rated....so Monarch and Thomas Cook guys and girls then? However the 330 is a pretty decent fleet to be on at both carriers so i'm told. Possibly guys out in the ME with Emirates, Etihad and Qatar? I would imagine their UK ATPLs would still be intact? However bonds with these lot are usually 3 years plus. Would there be many with this type of 'seniority' who are willing to start again at the bottom with VS? As for Aer Lingus crew? The UK licence requirement excludes their application. However would someone on the 330 fleet at EI be applying to VS anyway? Don't know?

Probably a good thing that A320 experience will be accepted. Any thoughts?

A peace of pi$$ for UK charter boys & girls ;)

Probably a good thing that A320 experience will be accepted. Any thoughts?

Yeh! I expect many at Easy applying!!! :eek:

I would just say that anyone with an IAA licence i.e. you and I Callsign and most Aer Lingus jockeys would just say that we had one on the application process. I mean I qualified with a UK licence and converted it to an IAA one by just filling out forms and giving the IAA a couple of hundred quid.

What's the hang up about, CAA UK ATPL licences only, I have the IAA version but can get the CAA version with a few forms, an afternoon down at IAA house and £270 odd quid. Simples.

Before anyone gets too excited about Virgin being back in the recruiting market, this is just a toe-dipping exercise which may well not actually result in any new recruits. The company is not certain how many of its stood-down pilots are able to come back in the timescale they're now looking at, and they may need to recruit a very few new bods to fill the gaps. I understand (and fervently hope) that any recruiting will not affect the rights of the furloughed few to come back, so it could possibly be that those new people could, initially at least, be on short-term contracts. However, that is just my speculation and not any declared or implied company policy.

It is certainly true that commercially, Virgin has recovered far more strongly and quickly than anyone expected even only a few months ago. The two grounded A340-600s are back on the line, and I understand that the leased out 744 will return in the new year. The 10 A333s look like being additional to the fleet, but we only have firm information about the first two leisure-fit aircraft. We'll have to wait to find out about the rest. The B787 is now expected to begin deliveries in 2014 (I think) and the A380 is still sliding rightwards. There is no official suggestion that the A350 is being considered, but it seems logical to me that it must be in the mix if the B787 slips any further - its variants could conceivably replace all of the current and proposed fleets except the A380!

PPJN carries reasonably accurate information about pay and stuff. Time to command is somewhat of an imponderable, but 12-15 years is probably a fair estimate right now. It could come in to less than 10 for guys currently high on the FO seniority list if all of the A333s are additional to the current fleet. This thread covers a great deal of info about Virgin Atlantic, and what it's like to work there. It's old, but most of it is still valid. I've merged the current and recent VS threads into this one to get more up to date info available in one place. Have a good look at all the varying points of view expressed by current and past VS pilots, and consider carefully how your own expectations would compare with their experiences here. If you are actively considering a move to VS, think carefully about the stresses the longhaul lifestyle brings to your family. Don't expect to find a company magically free of the irritations and injustices of your current place; this is a big(ish) company which grew quickly. There is evidence of that in many ways. Stuff is constantly being addressed, but there are inevitably tensions. Most of all, if you don't like being away from home or living in hotels, or being on your own, don't even think about coming here. That should be obvious, but seems to pass some people by!

Good luck to those who apply.

Does anybody know about the recruitment process ??

Interview - what's the format, does it involve tech stuff ?

exams/tests - are there any ? tech/IQ/maths/english etc ?

sim ride ??

many thanks

You must apply online, via the Virgin Atlantic website. The pre-screening is directly from the online application. If that hurdle is successfully passed, you may be invited to interview. In the last recruiting round, there were exams - technical and other - and the interview could cover any topic relevant to the job. I seem to remember that the sim ride was dropped for a while and then reinstated, but a study of the Master Thread linked to in my last post will probably cover that.

In other words, it's a pretty standard airline recruiting procedure.

I aspire to fly long haul and when i have enough experience under my belt i will apply! I haven't got a family and i don't aim to have one, it sounds absolutely delightful. My first target is to unfreeze my ATPL and that's going to take 18+ months but i'm slowly getting there! I'm glad VS are considering A320 bods :ok:

One question though, the ad states:

I have JAR license issued here in the UK but i'm working for an airline outside Europe, i'm current on the A320 (TR not done in Europe) and i am just wondering why they have stipulated European although i'm a brit? (I'm not applying off course just wondering for the future)

Thx for the info Scroggs would love to fly with you someday...:)

good for you.

Hello Scroggs (or other flight crews working for VA),

Just a subsdiary question, broadly speaking, how do happen most of the stopovers, is it like when you arrive at the hotel, "ok guys, enjoy your night, see you tomorrow, pick up at ----";
or "ok guys, see you in a couple of hours, enjoy your nap, what about checking out this new place ? "
I mean do you get to chill out with the rest of the crew (of course it will depend on who's with who) (I mean pilots AND cabin crew, i.e. the whole team) or is it getting (as in one major airline I know a bit) scarcer and scarcer ?

thanks

@ 727

It depends on the destination, on east coast US trips it can be a hit or miss to be honest. Very occasionally you may get up to 6-8 cabin crew and the 2 flight crew meeting at the bar for a couple of drinks. However on most one night trips you'll find 2 flight crew and say 2 or 3 cabin crew at the bar one hour after check-in for a few beers. One exception to the east coast seems to be MCO, Orlando seems to bring most folk down to the bar! Think its something to do with the bar happy hour that runs from 15.00 - 21.00...

West coast stopovers tend to be more sociable as its normally a 48 hour layover, more crew tend to make an effort and in destinations like LAX where there are 4 crews at any one time this can lead to some fun and games :p

Caribbean, again for some reason there is usually a really good turnout at the bar. Not unusual to see a full crew come down an hour or two after check-in.

Far east is another sociable zone, Narita and Hong Kong in particular being rather 'notorious' for having a good time.

African destinations are similar to the east coast US trips in terms of numbers of cabin crew and flight crew who meet up for a meal or beer.

I must point out I'm not Flight Crew for VS, merely an international tea-bag squeezer (Cabin Crew) However I hope this answers your questions. :ok:

Tea Bag Squeezer? Is that some kind of euphemism?!

Just wondering what routes these new 330s are expected to do... I've heard to expect a lot of MCOs... will they mainly be on the East Coast routes? Or is it all still very much TBC?

Thanks.

Thanks Virgin 350,

Well that doesn't sound too bad to say the least !
One more :ok: for VA

Cheers

The question still remains. Someone within Virgin must know where these A330's will go! Come-on Scroggs, spill the beans!

TBE.

From 2 April 2011, the A333 will be deployed on one daily MAN-Orlando service. The second A333 'line' starts at the beginning of May 2011 and will see the aircraft operate 6 x LGW-Orlando services per week. Later in 2011, we plan to start operating A333 at LHR. Final deployment details are still to be confirmed, but candidate routes for the aircraft include Chicago, East Coast US gateways, Accra, Nairobi, Dubai and Delhi.
As communicated previously, all A333 flying on Leisure routes will be performed by aircraft in a 2-class layout, configured with 45W/265Y seats, for a total seat count of 313.

Here's where the fun starts - apparently the Upper Class Suite which is arranged in a herringbone format across the cabin will not fit in its current form and layout as on the other A340's as the cabin is too narrow to achieve this. Galley FM is that the first 2 will be used on leisure (with no Upper) and the others have been delayed whilst a solution is sought! :ugh::ugh:

Anybody been given a interview date?

Pretty unlikely as the A330 and A340 share the same 222 inch fuselage cross-section.

Interviews
 

They say that the applications will close on October the 27th, so I'm guessing noone will hear about an interview until after then. I'll be interested to be proved wrong though.