Junior BA 737 roster Gatwick & A320 roster Heathrow
 

Good afternoon all,

I have pretty much read every single thread on here about BA and cannot find any up to date information after 2007(ish) about the a 737 roster out of Gatwick.

Im really interested in how the bidding works with the Carmen system?

The average amount of days off per month and can you bid for blocks of time off similar to bid line?

Also, I heard a rumour that most of the flying now is centred around day trips rather than tours. ( I hope not!). I imagine this would change between Winter/ Summer schedules. Any true to this?

Would also appreciate any other relevant information about life on the 737 down in Gatwick.

Thank you and look forward to your replies.

Judging by the response Id give it a miss :=, sounds like they are working 24/7 and too shagged out when they get home to even log onto PPRuNe :zzz:

or they are quite happy and do not log into pprune at all.

I remember that when i was happy in 3 airlines ago, i never logged into here.

But i too need this info, so anyone please?

Hello Hollywood316

I've just had a look at the March rosters for 737 LGW. As you can imagine there is a huge variation across the board as pilots have leave, reserve training etc which all tends to break up an average line.

What I can see is a lot of hard work. Guys working a full month seem to have 18 or 19 days in uniform with 12 or 13 days off. The work is mainly in blocks but there are single days off. A large number of trips are out and back but some nightstops appear -BLQ for instance. 2 sector days appear to be rare.

Great training ground for a junior as there is plenty of exposure to take offs/landings and Northern European weather. Our 737's are in pretty good condition for their age but will need replacing over the next few years..

Just out of interest,

How protective are the skippers with new joiners? How much flying do you guys get in terms of hand flying SID's, NPA's, raw data ILS etc?

Cheers

Going off topic I know, but it may be useful for newbies for this to be expanded.

What does a junior 767 LHR roster look like? In terms of no of days off, week days, weekends, how many 'reports' (i,e all trips / tours or lots of 1 day duties?) etc etc. I know there is a huge variation but I'm trying to get a rough feel of what to expect.

I heard about 65 to 70 hours a month, that is a sane figure. But the single days off are medieval :-(

Could any of you kind BA 737 chaps share a recent roster with us?

Would be greatly appreciated!

Yes please, we know its illegal to publish a roster, but if you take off the name and the name of the airline, that is just a mere page of numbers and letters,
so please publish a roster here.

Junior BA A320 roster Heathrow
 

Similar to another thread on here, but would be interested to hear what a line of work might be like for a newbie on the airbus at Heathrow. Days off, week days, weekends, how many 'reports', sectors per day (particularly for day trips).
Any info much appreciated!

Sorry to be blunt but the answers - such as they are - are in the various BA threads (I know - I've posted them before!)

There is no set roster as such. If you expect to work weekends, bank holidays and get up early, you'll not be disappointed!! But then, expect that, once published, it is highly unlikely to change. And, in reality, you'll get a good mix with a degree of choice (bottom 20% of the fleet, 3rd choice this month).

767 Roster when junior.

Hardly any day trips, mostly the shorter longhaul trips over weekends and a few days of days when they can assign other stuff to you...

Title is wrong, BA737 is only Gatwick :-)
 

That is great but,
i had various experiences before, legacy , low cost (RYR) and then Fractional then another legacy. And i found the 5/4 roster at ryanair being quite good on paper but when i asked somebody to publish his own or a similar its because i wanna see how many minimum rest, how many sectors, how many hours, how many early departure lates shifts are and so and so.
In the BA case, which i assume is similar to my early years legacy carrier experience, i wish to know how a random roster looks like, check in at 6am, finish at what? 6pm or 4pm or 2pm most commonly? and the days off are lates into earlies so its actually a short day off, or usually singles are there during a change between early shift and late shift. I wish also to know the grouping of days off, if it is common to have singles, and how often you can hope for a 3 or a 4 days off. Those are the things that make life for pilots bearable, because working weekend and early is part of the deal since i started 12 years ago.
Anyone?
Thanks

I'm junior on the 767 and this month achieved a bid for a line with 6 day trips, 1 2 day SH trip, 2 3 day LH trips (night TLV is effectively 2 days though) and 1 4 day LH trip. I've not done a blindline (which is what is being described above) since 2008 and I bid for it. I tend to avoid day trips as a rule but tried bidding for weekends off in March, I got 12 days off including 4 weekend days off. Next month, by choice, I'm working every weekend with 1 Sunday off and one of the bank holidays but have effectively extended my leave by 2 days with a total of 14 days off.

I used to work for Britannia/Thompsonfly and even though after 3 years I'm still in the bottom 3rd of the 767 FOs I have much more control over my life than I ever did with random rostering, contactables and the guaranteed days off.

There aren't any short-haul tours at the moment on the 767 as far as I know but I haven't looked into it, time off after a short-haul trip is minimum rest, you can opt to reduce time off after a long-haul trip to a local night but it's usually 2-3 days. Because bidline is a 2 pass system the permutations are such that there is no typical roster, being junior you will have to compromise on days off/trip destinations etc at some point though.

Any 737 gatwick?
 

Anyone wish to comment on 737 Gatwick? we know gatwick is different, we wish to know something about it.

Are there any 767's at LGW or are they only located at LHR? I did hear a rumour that some LHR based 767's were moving to LGW and some 777's moving in the opposite direction. Is there any truth to this?

Thanks to StudentInDebt for their post.:D

There are no 767's at LGW at the moment and I haven't heard any rumours of a move - which means it'll probably be announced today :rolleyes: . Some tinkering happening with the 777 ( e.g. due to the dropping of the Sharm route) but I'm not sure what, if any effect that will have on the basing of the 777's. You certainly wouldn't be talking about moving many, if any, hulls.

Gatwick uses a different bidding system to LHR. Carmen (the Gatwick system) still relies on seniority to determine rosters but doesn't have the same 'gradient' as Bidline does at LHR. i.e. - everything else being equal, junior guys have better rosters at Gatwick.
With Carmen, you submit a monthly bid with various preferences. These could be days off, early day trips, late starts, tours, no 4-sector days, whatever really. Carmen will look at everyone's bid and try to achieve 40% satisfaction for the most junior pilot, increasing with seniority. The big bonus with Carmen is that anybody, regardless of seniority can guarantee (99.999%!) one 1-4 day block off, even over a weekend. The downside is that to do that you must only bid for that one block of days, so the rest of your month will be a lottery. In short, it's a pretty good system for junior guys.

Gatwick has very few nightstop destinations (6 now), so if you want to do longer tours, you stand a better chance of getting them at LHR.

I vote this answer the best of the tread so far! thanks mate!
i hope to be able to join Carmen soon.

LGW 737 Nightstops
 

Thanks BusDriverLHR for your most informative post, all very useful information. Any ideas what the six nightstop 737 destinations are at the moment, and what typically the four sector days might consist of?