Haha no worries. There’s not many as sad as me to study it that closely so it’s in your favour ;-)

Haha well I know the FW’s for those on the 76 have been extremely well received anyway!

The results came out while I was downroute so only glanced over it and noted a few Airbus FW’s in my frantic finger swiping down the pages to find my own bid result. Didn’t realise it was 50 or so.

Level is not a threat to BA? If the slots get used by Level rather than BA, surely that is already taking work away from BA? IAG will direct the work where they consider the highest profit expansion potential. If they believed LCLH cannot be successful, why would they bother to worry about Norwegian and present some kind of competition? BA did not see the likes of EasyJet as a threat in the early days and look what happened there? They clearly do not want to repeat the same mistake. I personally think there is now a sizeable market for low cost long haul. We are living in a world where people are always looking to do things as cheaply as possible because their employers are not giving them real payrises, and are unlikely to do so for another decade. The timing for previous LCLH was not right, but we are well and truly there now. I know far more people who just want to get from A to B as cheaply as possible, than people who want to pay a couple of hundred pounds more and have a better seat. You are looking at well over a grand saved for a typical family going away on holiday. That is a lot of money for the vast majority of holiday makers.

Rex, I really hope you are right and I’m wrong on this. IAG exists for one reason as far as I can see - allocate expansion opportunities via lowest unit cost and the ability to circumnavigate legacy industrial agreements in the process.

The future is interesting to say the least!

GS-Alpha the money to be made on Long Haul is in the Premium Cabins. Economy or Traveller or however you wish to brand the cheap seats is heavily subsidized by the Premium ones. Unit costs cannot be lowered to any significant degree to offset the huge loss in revenue by only selling cheap seats. Not only that but the low cost carriers cannot use the aircraft any more intensively than the legacies unlike short haul.

We know all this but it’s only to reinforce the fact that even when the economic environment (cheap fuel, low interest rates to finance new aircraft) is perfectly set up in theory to enable a LCC long haul operation, Norwegian are still only barely keeping their heads above water. What do you think will happen when another shock happens? (And it always does). I know who I’ll be betting my money on.

IAG are responding because Norwegian are taking revenue away, no doubt. Even if it is at the lower end of the market that’s still revenue that is not going into the coffers. Do you really think they’d sit and do nothing whilst that is going on? Ultimately though there is no way that they are going to cannibalize BA’s operation because the margins in LCC Long Haul are so thin and the profits are so limited.

We heard all the rumours about Vueling being the replacement for BA’s Short Haul operation at Gatwick. Still hasn’t happened. Won’t happen with Level either. I’ll say it again, they started Level because they got a fantastically low price for some end of line A330’s. That’s the only reason it works. And it’s perfect to hurt Norwegian in the short term.

Chaps/chapettes... for the uninitiated, what’s a freeze waiver?

I agree Rex, the best margins are to be made in premium seats, as long as you can put bums on seats without too many upgrades. I also agree that a return to very high oil prices would put a strain on low cost long haul travel margins. Holiday makers are not so keen on paying for premium seats though. The people buying these low cost seats were never going to buy premium seats from BA, so they are not directly taking revenue from BA. Level is tapping into a completely separate market, however any expansion of Level at LGW uses slots that could have been used by BA. IAG is about diversification without extreme interference with the BA brand, and Level helps to achieve that aim. Veuling did not arrive at LGW, but the threat was used to improve efficiencies there, which then filtered across to short haul at LHR. The same tactic could very easily be utilised against BA long haul, and that is bad for BA pilots whether or not Level survives in the long term. “Guys, we are going to use these new slots to expand Level unless efficiencies are made.” Sound familiar?

FCR

When you join BA you are given a 5 year “engagement freeze”. BA are not obliged to offer you a move onto another fleet until that initial 5 year period has expired. When you do get a move, say F/O 320 to F/O 777 you then have a 5 year “equipment freeze” applied. You can carry on moving fleets every 5 years if you so wish.

However you can bid to change fleet/go for command etc every year during the month long bidding window (July). BA will offer a “freeze waver” if there is a shortage on a fleet you have bid for that needs filling internally rather than via DEP recruitment.

This year due to various factors a large number of 320 F/Os are being granted moves to long haul fleets inside their initial 5 year freeze.
So clearly there will be a number of 320 vacancies, filled by FPPs and DEPs.

The advice is always “bid for what you want”. Some guys got 320’commands well inside their 5 year engagement freeze as a result. There are always some comedy bids, eg a year 1 cadet pilot bidding for an A380 command - that is streching the maxim somewhat!

Important for new joiners to remember that five years is not a reference to calendar years, it refers to training years. You only have to do part of a training year for it to be counted so what sounds like a long time is very often less. Of course then you still have to have the required seniority at the time for your chosen fleet.

Thanks for the info. Can’t fault his/her optimism!

So I think what we can take from this is that there will be recruitment, but as I said a page or two back, I’m not sure how many DEPs will get the nod. I refer back to the July holdpool update... ”At the moment based on our current forecasting for 2018 we are not expecting to be able to offer anyone a start date in 2018 from the DEP holdpool.”

And from what you say, freeze waivers from the 320 onto long haul fleets effectively closes the door for our non-rated swimming colleagues.

Difficult to say for certain but the indications are that the fact that so many Freeze Waivers are taking place off the Airbus - whilst we know for sure that there are at least as many DEP’s swimming in the pool who meet the LH requirements - means that the numbers have been crunched and it will have been concluded cheaper to get Cadets in on reduced pay for a number of years than it is paying for the one off cost of an extra conversion course.

Of course if the requirements jump to 200-300 a year again (we shall see) then the training capacity will determine the movement off the Airbus and the recruitment of DEP's. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

No idea of the logic of putting Level in LGW.... why would you (IAG) use your low cost brand (Level) to take business away from your premium brand (BA)?

You end up just competing with yourself and lowering you overall revenues!

Having said that, I can still see it happening! :(

There is no logic Dave. It would absolutely trash the yields on those routes as you and I can see. Still people need something to be paranoid about I suppose! If it does happen they won’t be on the same routes as the BA fleet, it’ll be something different, so no threat to 777 jobs just yet.

To take out Norwegian then fold the Level operation is the only reason I can think of. Unless the strategic view is LCLH is the ways forwards and you don't want your business to be the next Polaroid. Evolve or die...

To be fair, the typical LCLH user will be very different to the typical business class user, one would expect operators would prefer a jet full of business class, as the highest incline stream, if there were enough users of such a service.

There’s undoubtedly less profit to be made in LCLH though VinRouge. You simply cannot get the unit cost down to the same extent that you can in Short Haul. It’s been tried over and over and over again. Norwegian haven’t somehow magically made it profitable, it’s the most advantageous environment there has ever been for LCCLH (Cheap Fuel, record low interest rates) and they are barely keeping their heads above water. Surely that tells its own story?

I am absolutely convinced that BA/IAG are talking up Norwegian as a stick to beat the workforce with. We should 100% call them on it.

BA/IAG has secured the LGW Monarch slots. Standby for mass recruitment.

Well it seems IAG have won the majority of Monarch’s Gatwick slots.

We are already increasing density down the back on our LGW 777s. Level wouldn’t work at Heathrow, but packing them in tight as you can has a market at Gatwick in my opinion.

IAG claim the customers buying tickets with Level are a completely new customer base. They are therefore not currently in direct competition with BA’s revenue stream other than the fact that expansion of Level is not expansion of BA. But you can say the same thing about all of the other companies within the IAG group.

Incidentally, I too think we should call IAG’s bluff with regards to their attempts to beat us with the threat of other companies taking our work. I thought that way back when they were claiming we needed to take cost cuts in order to fund BMI coming to BA, rather that Veuling or some new IAG entity. BA is definitely a hugely important part of IAG at least in the short to medium term.

Speculation aside as to where the slots are destined in the longer term, how do we think BA are going to service these new slots? Short haul aircraft, or long haul? Hang on to a couple of 747s and 767s a little while longer perhaps?

They also are having to contend with the overheads of establishing an operation at present. That can't be cheap, the profit will come imho once they bed in and learn where increased load factor or prices are tolerable.

Price hikes in fuel will impact the whole industry and result in price hikes, the low cost I expect will be relative to existing traditional long haul carriers. If everyone hikes by 50 quid a fare for increased prices, the traditional airlines will be in just a bad situation. Hedging fuel prices only works in your favour for so long before options expire, so that can only work in the sort to medium term.

The only concern is bankruptcy or someone loss leading, similar to what has happened to NOR SH at BHX I believe. Question is, with 2 billion down, are they now too big to fail?

Read about Braniff and Air Europe and then compare to what’s going on at Norwegian. The parallels are staggering. They’re over stretching themselves going for market share ahead of actually establishing profitability. There’s a staggering amount of red ink all over their balance sheet. By their own admission in their latest accounts they only have guaranteed capitalisation for the next three quarters! It isn’t just related to growing the business. I will take any bet you like that they won’t be here in five to ten years time.

Don't go giving them any ideas!!!

As far as I know, the last of the 767's have an issue which means they MUST be in their final resting place by 0001 hrs on 1st Jan 2019. Up until that point I guess it's feasible to use the fleet wherever they see fit but the remaining 7 aircraft are all short haul config and not etops. Maybe a stop gap for a few months for some high density short haul perhaps but something more definite must be in the pipeline for slots that valuable. Maybe more work for the triple bearing in mind the FW's onto the fleet.

Just for clarity, as posted at the top is it BA/IAG who have secured the slots or IAG? The former would assume IAG have secured the slots for BA.

Reports on Reuters et al would suggest it's IAG so I guess any one of the group could benefit from them. I'd imagine the most likely to use them would be BA but you never know with IAG.

How many slots did Monarch have to sell?

I bet neither had the pseudo backing of a sovereign wealth fund worth trillions looking for long term investment opportunities on the behalf of their nationals though!

https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/

I read somewhere that Monarch had 18 slot pairs at Gatwick. I cannot remember where I read it because it was a while back, and so I am not sure of its accuracy.

It’s ok guys I’m sure Level will snap those up

Couldn’t be further from the truth.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.ind...261.html%3famp
If this isnt hope for those of us in the pool then nothing will be!

Anyone have any idea or indications within BA if this would cause enough of a requirement to reopen DEP applications?

As of last year, there were circa 300 people in the hold pool, and we’ve had our expiration dates extended twice, so I’d say it would be unlikely in the foreseeable future.

But how many in the pool are 320 rated? And how many of those are still even interested in BA? Was any of this expansion planned when our dates were extended?

I know it's easy (and frankly, less disappointing) to be pessimistic but on the contrary I'd say this is the most positive it's looked in terms of recruitment potential for a good while. 28% unplanned expansion at Gatwick must mean good news for at least a few.

Valid point. Many of the people I know in the holdpool have moved on and are no longer interested in BA. Even more with no interest in shorthaul. Does anybody have reliable info about the number of DEP swimmers? I’ve heard as low as 80 and as high as 300.

That question was asked of a manager elsewhere earlier today and the answer was that as yet there was no change to the current plans. Of course that could change tomorrow and in any event it's obviously not just a case of backsides on seats, you need the equipment to use the slots.

I think a few things are certain and that is, JSS will mean that the current pilot establishment will be “Optimised” or worked to fatigue and this will mean less pilots are needed. With the plans that probably means FPPs will fill the gaps by pilots leaving the 320 fleet. DEP......search me. Gatwick slots I assume were not accounted for but with 25 NEOs arriving to replace the older 319’s it is not hard to imagine those being sent to Gatwick to slot sit. Where do the pilots come from? Rated DEP one would assume in order to get it up and running quickly whilst maintaining so level of experience. If that does happen the PRIAM result go out the window. Simply put, the slots have to be used, aircraft need to fill them and pilots need to fly them. My two pence which is probably completely wrong as it’s so simple.

A friend in the company scoured the relevant Yammer threads and came up with the following numbers. So fairly reliable, based on (I think) a reasonable assumption of success rate in the sim:

• 446 sim assessments in 2016.
• Based on 2 out of 3 success rate, that has ~300 in the pool
• ~30% of whom are 320 rated, so ~90 rated swimmers.
• A handful of whom started with the company in Jan/Feb this year - someone will know the exact number.

As you mentioned, there will be a number who have moved on to VS or the Middle East or elsewhere, or who have stayed put and picked up a command, or who perhaps already have a command and have no interest in joining the short haul fleet in the RHS. Some will be Monarch guys who are now perhaps commited to elsewhere.

How many there are in one of those situations... your guess is as good as mine. Personally, I know four guys who would fit one of those criteria. And to be fair, BA won’t even know until they start making offers.

Don’t forget there are 777 and 747 rated pilot’s too in the pool.

Quite. Many assume all recruitment if any would be for the A320 only. Answer is, we really don't know. But potentially all Airbus positions could be filled with FPPs/ white tail cadets. If (and a big if) there's a need for longhaul DEPs then these could go to Boeing rated.

Like others have mentioned I know several in the pool who have gone off to the likes of Virgin and Thomson/TUI and seem rather happy with life there.

Thanks for the reply FoxChaRomeo. I think your right. Any plan made to call people out of the pool if subject to massive change depending on people accepting or not. Which as you said they’ll only know when they start making the offers. Based solely on people you and I know, it does sound like a sizable chunk have moved on. But, it’s anyone’s guess.

Not involved in the pool myself so these comments are totally from an observer.

If I were "swimming" I would have every right to be quite annoyed with the situation. The selection process is not trivial and requires a large amount of preparation is required, which, one would assume would lead to a job with BA if successful. I'm glad the holding pool lifeline has been extended but if I were to "expire" I'd expect to be re-imbursed the costs incurred to attend the selection events. In other news I saw a flying pig the other day...

Hope you all get the call :ok: