Back in the day, junior pilots did indeed tend to do low credit two man trips over weekends, plus some time assignable days to get them somewhere near a credit protected CAP. Under JSS, junior pilots are doing low credit trips over weekends, plus a couple more trips. 6 long haul trips in a month did not happen for junior pilots in days of old. Weekend working is to be expected because two sevenths of our work is over weekends. However it is wrong that senior pilots can do 4 trips with time in the bunk to help with the fatigue, whilst junior pilots are doing 6 trips because the credit system deems that to be the same amount of work.

Idiot alert 🙄

how so then? Because your post made me doubt myself so I had a look at my logbook from 1999 when I joined. Seems very similar actually. Every weekend worked. 4 reserves a year. 790 hours. And 5 east coasts a month the norm. Few months with
5 trips and two sims.
Took me about 3 years to achieve a couple of weekends a month off. Average hours were maybe a tad less I grant you that. But not a huge amount.
We ahve only had 4 JSS months so I’d say it’s too early to make a massive call on it. Although, I’m not sure I agree with you when you say there’s a massive difference in what the junior are doing now. I think we tend to look back on careers with rose tinted glasses. As said above, a quick trawl on iBid of the last year reveals quite a few lines with 6 trips due FA on them.
i do however think there needs to be a limit on work done though. 5 LH 3 month is probably the limit imo. Unfortunately, BA have found they can sweat the assets so I don’t see it changing soon.

I think part of the problem is that our rostering system has been brought into the 21st Century. The ability of computer power to “optimise” rosters was never available before, which meant “inefficient “ rosters as far as the company were concerned. Or extra time off as far as pilots were concerned.
It is a pity that optimise meant different things depending on whether you were BA or a pilot.

You are not wrong, but I’m not sure I’d call bidline with FA, the days of old. It was a temporary alleviation to the rules. In the same way that a year or so of hanging about for an hour waiting for a bus from the aircraft to the car park prepared us well for the one hour it tends to take to get from chocks on at T5 to the car park, a few years of FA prepared us well for JSS. Quite clever of BA really. 5 trips a month is busy but doable, and is probably a fair price for being junior, but 6 trips a month is a recipe for serious fatigue in my opinion. Bidline used to have a rule where if you had 5 trips but were not at CAP at stage 1, you could drop as many of them as you liked with the hope of getting closer to CAP with the 5 trips you might pick up at stage 2. I presume the intention there was that 6 trips a month was a bit much. I agree that if you set a max 5 trips or adjusted credit for shorter trips, the senior guys would then switch to picking up 5 of the shortest trips and leave junior guys with 5 long trips. Hence why I stated that a seniority system for monthly bidding doesn’t really work very fairly. I’m all for there being some advantage to being senior, but the advantages are way too high.

Introducing some kind of points system for weekends is an attempt to remove the seniority advantage for that element of monthly bidding. Messing about with inhibitors is an attempt to do away with the seniority advantages there also. We seem to be attempting to use a strict seniority system with a load of sticky plasters. It is true that the BALPA members voted for JSS. When 50% of the pilots are more senior than the others, and many of those in the bottom half recognise they will be in the top half by the time the system comes in, funnily enough, it gets voted in - particularly when tied to a paydeal, it doesn’t mean it is a good system for the guys in the bottom portion.

I know plenty of people who are refusing commands purely because they don’t want to give up the huge lifestyle advantages afforded be being senior.

Plus one to working every weekend when junior, first on short haul, as an FO, then again long haul, a glance at my log book shows the delightful 183/182 combo 4 times in a row, admittedly the 3rd was allocated from TASS, but today’s snowflakes would be at the priory after that!

JSS is rubbish, I didn’t vote for it, and those did are stupid for following BALPAs advice, give the promise of a free gift in their packet of cereals and pilots will vote for anything.

But JSS is not the problem, it’s the people that promote themselves into a command, then moan about working weekends, like they didn’t know and the people who join a seniority based company, with 34 pay points then moan about it. Those people are the problem!

I wanna be a Captain.......... but I shouldn’t, have to work weekends, poor me........

I’ve been with BA for quite a while now.
I’ve had the best 22 odd years of my life. Great people to work with, going to great places round the world. I really have had a ball.

JSS has changed all of that. If you’re junior you’re going to work every weekend, every month, doing a lot of the most fatiguing trips available with minimum days off. And that’s just long haul, I can’t speak for short haul.

Anyone applying, just bear that in mind...

Total bollocks. Not why anyone voted for JSS. Feel free to rewrite history for your “I told you so moment” but it’s not why JSS is here. If you’re that clever sort our the pay mess will you? Nah, didn’t think so.

Snowflack: “those that promote themselves into a command?” Nobody promotes themselves. They get the opportunity to prove they can meet the required standard. It’s a good job somebody will take a SH command because just imagine how many course failures there would be if we were dragging long term SFO’s from LH to SH LHS against their will.

Ryanair has it right. Seniority based on the day you join. Seniority as a captain based on the date you pass your command upgrade. It would solve the problem we have regarding SH command

All very well at an airline with one fleet where all the work is the same, of course....

You know what he meant; don't be difficult.

You joined BA late, got an early short haul command, and now can't stop moaning about the BA / seniority system.
Get over it!

The Blu Ridband. Wrong, wrong and the seniority system is fine as a concept but the delivery of it is not. Since you know me send me a email and I will happily meet you to give you the facts surrounding my position. You are probably misinformed as many are and I don’t blame you for that. Email is just the standard BA one.

wiggy, quite correct. It is one of the most challenging courses RHS LH to LHS SH. If you are not committed to it, it will be a much greater ask than it is. It’s the attitude of guys I have flown with that gets me. The system as I said is fine but the attitude of a minority shows a lack of compassion or empathy and in some cases a spiteful enjoyment. Re reading I should have worded my point better.

No more Short Haul courses until the end of the summer schedule according to latest Comms on yammer.

Hi All,
I’ve been in the BA holdpool for just over 2 months now. Slightly unexpected as we were told during the process that the holdpool was pretty much non-existent and to expect to be called up very quickly. Anyone else been waiting that long, or would anyone that’s recently received an offer be able to let me know how long they were waiting before it came?
cheers

I don’t think the new chap in recruitment and manpower planning has a clue what is going on. Granted he’s been chucked in at the deep end with a new team, but he’s sent pilots out of seniority for commands, which will cost tens of thousands in pass over pay, and there just isn’t enough external applicants coming in. Heard it on good authority this week that pilots aren’t turning up for their courses. One chap went to TUI on the 787 this week instead of BA 320.