The information and feedback on the DEP threads are very accurate. The approach I took was to take the time to read the threads, open a word document and copy/paste all relevant information into one place. The new computer test is the only part of Day one that can not be practised.

BALPA were well and truly beaten by the company during Openskies, back when they had both a strong pilot mandate and rock solid legal advice. Despite the union's protestations that they are impotent because the pilots are not united, this is in my opinion just spin to keep people paying their subscriptions. My first fifteen years have seen BALPA negotiate 'clever' deals that turn out to be worse than what the company were asking for in the first place. I expect the next fifteen to be no different. In my opinion, we'd achieve exactly the same result if the company simply asked for some volunteers to form a pilot negotiaton/communicaton body, and gave them credit for their non-flying duties.

Please consider your expectations managed.

GS

There's a risk of continuing the drift but nevertheless I think this is worth briefly persuing on this recruitment thread since I've seen optimistic claims elsewhere about why people should join BA because of BALPA's strong influence on the company.

TBH at a strategic level (often at company council and certainly above) these days I think BALPA in all it's forms is struggling to counter the lobbying power/spend of the industry. OTOH a local level I've always found most of the individual reps in BA to be very very good at helping sorting out difficulties, even if it means ruffling a few feathers with those in the office.

Re Openskies

As I heard it that was the nub of BALPAs problem. they thought they had - it turned out they didn't, but we never found out all the gory details.

Looking from the outside in, I think I somewhat agree with wiggy.

EASA FTL's got onto the statute book because of the significant airline lobby. Airline managements across Europe are exploiting the legislative landscape to their advantage knowing it will be years before even a concerted Union lobby will "catch up" so to speak.

There certainly doesn't look like there needs to be a prohibition on swapping fleets in BA, especially when the economics of the swap make sense, but that "luxury" seems to me, just that, a "luxury".

One hopes that regardless of any dashed personal expectations (I always thought Senior SH BA pilots could pretty much generate a LH lifestyle via bidding anyway - although being a LH pilot myself, I honestly don't really understand the lure of the LH lifestyle!), BA pilots stick together, as they're a far more potent force within the industry when they stand united.

Thanks to BALPAs weakness or perhaps because it suits certain commuters within the BACC, bidding has been neutered within BA. Even the most senior are affected by this and the days of being able to bid for what you like and avoiding the stuff you don't have ended. Still, on the bright side, it may persuade some not to stay until they die in harness, there maybe more churn soon.

Sounds like the bidline system has changed. Could anyone inthe know share a recent a320 roster?

Thanks

nick

At the risk of repetition ... yes indeed, whether that's for good or bad depends on your POV.

If you (or anybody else for that matter) starts hearing tales from someone on the joys of Bidline ask them when they last worked as BA Flight Crew. If it's longer ago than the end of '14 than frankly you're probably better off politely ignoring the input.

(but sorry, can't help with the roster but FWIW a final roster in isolation, in itself, might not tell the whole story, you'd need to see the road travelled.....).

I don't think its the lure of LH that has got many wanting to escape SH but the changes to SH making life really hard. I was away from home for 90 duty hours a week in March. Many are saying the only way to survive SH is to go part time.

You know it's bad when guys in the LHS A320 are considering a bid back to RHS on a LH fleet. The roster I saw for a junior P1 is horrible. 10 days off in a month and a line full of poor credit trips and 4 sector days. A junior P2 is not much better. Then you look at a 777 line with heavy crew and three trips in a month with 15 days off a month.............grass is always greener and all that but since SH got stuffed it's only a matter of time before LH gets it too.

I have no issues staying on the SH fleet but I don't feel I pilot should be made to feel he has little or no choice but to bid off based on the wide gulf in lifestyle between the two.

Thanks to all the guys in the know who've posted on this so far. Could anyone outline in a bit more detail the extent of the recent changes to bidline? Can you still bid for a line of work or has that facility now been completely removed for more generic bidding options such as earlies/mids/lates/overnights/day trips etc. Cheers in advance:ok:

Wiggy

I believe that is indeed correct. The problem now is that no matter how much money BALPA throw at their legal advice, they will never trust that it is rock solid and therefore they will never again challenge BA head on. All they can do is tweak agreements to the extent that the company allows them to. Any negotiating body could do that. On a local level; one of my friends was sacked for something he did not do. He was a BALPA member and received very poor advice from the union which ultimately cost an innocent man his job.

You can still bid for lines of work and they are awarded based on seniority. If you are in the bottom 25% then forget it you are on blind lines. Over three years in and since the temporary but now permanent changes came in it's been blind lines for 9 months in a row now.

You can trade trips still but there are now so many restrictions it is very difficult to actually trade without the computer saying no because it's a code L, or a closed day or my personal favourite because there are more than -1 uncovered trips. I am still waiting for the no because there is a y in the day requested.

Since we changed from flying pay to a fixed flight pay allowance CAP has increased substantially. If you do get a trip line you can now be force assigned extra work even if you are above CAP. That Friday you wanted off and got.....na only kidding here is a day trip.

I have flown for three airlines and this one is by far the most demanding of your time. Would I have joined with the benefit of what I know now.......probably not no.

You can, but now even if you get a line and have hit or exceeded the monthly per capita target the company have the right, prior to the rosters becoming final, of dropping an extra trip(s) onto your line if there is space available, or even re-jigging your line to make space available for an extra trip..I think this months celebrated case is a long haul guy who had well over 90 hours credit on his line and then still had an extra trip dropped onto his roster...right in the space he'd tried to keep free by working harder in the rest of the month....

in short the downside now is that outside of leave you have zero solid control over days off until final rosters are published. OTOH the management can no longer ring you up on an off day or meet you at the aircraft side and hit you with an extra trip at very short notice.

Wow! Please show me those where you can also achieve CAP that doesn't involve a 9 day LHR-SIN-SYD-SIN-LHR! I must be missing them! ;)

It is very hard on SH at the moment. The letter passed around the company last week alluded to the slim possibility that, maybe, perhaps, possibly management got the crewing levels wrong last summer. Either that or we all went sick over the weekend 'spikes' as 'da management' like to call them.

Hopefully the recruiting will allow top end movement and a bit more of a breather on the line without the need for management to fudge, nudge and cajole the figures to avoid a CAP over run.

Time will tell. :-) Interestingly there is almost zero interest from the RHS LH for applying for LHS SH. Odd that isn't it. :}

Ok hands up perhaps we were guilty of finding a plumb line but I assure you yesterday when bitching about it we looked on Ibid and compared two random lines. 3 trips, at CAP and 15 days off. Either way it kicks the arse out of multi sector days, day trips and 10 days off in a month. What really grates now is the 7am pick up on a domestic to shuttle down to LHR to then have to sit about for three hours before your next link. This has started to become quite common since EASA FTL's

Next you will be saying the cheese board has been removed

I was assigned LHR Airbus last week starting at the end of July. I have heard of one 747 course too, although I don't know of anyone personally that's been offered it.

A320.......Long haul slots could come up but we need to see how the manpower plan shapes up. That's the actual words from LC. 220 pilots have been offered places with a requirement of 311

What? No more changes of roster after publication? Incredible - well done the BALPA reps!

Yep by screwing up Bidline so that you are now essentially rostered rather than have any real bidding rights, forced draft is no more. In my 14 years at BA I have never been forced drafted but I have used bidding to create a relatively comfortable set of rosters. That ability is gone now and Bidline is dead. The current BACC will be remembered as the ones that failed to defend BLRs and were partners, with BA in supervising the end of BLRs.

Well done the BALPAS reps! - yeah, right.

And how long do you think that was going to last - welcome to the real world. Anyway, you are over-reacting - no ability to have some control over your work at all - really?

Perhaps a less emotive description of the changes would be that under "old" Bidline you had a high degree of control over days off, and the more senior you were, the more control you had. Yes, there was the chance of being "drafted" at short notice but there were legitimate ways of constructing your roster to protect specific days. Under Bidline as it works today you have much less control. I think the major bone of contention for many is that you can be over the monthly CAP and the company can still stick extra work on the line and/or they can shuffle trips around to generate a gap to drop work into....I'm not sure I'd describe that as "welcome to the real world", I'd described it as being stuffed.....:\

That said there is indeed still some degree of control. There's still the protection of non assignable days such as leave, and as a back stop the possibility of swoping a trip with a colleague to generate a gap where you need it, however that is becoming increasingly problematic due to everybody's workload and will become even more difficult under EASA.

Ultimately if you join BA in the knowledge that in a month with no non-assignable days (e.g. leave, Duty Free week) you have no guaranteed choice or clarity as to your days off until final rosters are published you'll handle it fine.

...and that's all I want to say about that...:p

Does anyone have some experience with latestpilotjobs interview preparation?

I suppose it all depends on where you're coming from that determines how well you'll handle the roster at BA.

I'm used to a minimum of 4 sector days, usually 5 on, 2 off, 6 on, 3 off but it's definitely not fixed.

I can bid for leave but in practice I get it when the company are prepared to fit me in.

I can ask for 4 days off a year and be guaranteed to have them off (provided I get my request in 2 months before the date in question).

I can request up to 4 days off for the roster in two months time, but they are not guaranteed (I averaged 2 of these a month in my career).

I get £2/hr flight pay.

Including the BA flight allowance, I currently earn £15k less than a BA counterpart.

I'll be getting a FREE, globally recognised, globally employable type rating (a one-off in this day and age)

From this FO's point of view, BA looks a damn sight more rosy than many on here are making out.

I'll look forward to seeing whether the grass really is greener.

Boing7117 - think I know where you work mate and yeh BA for all its faults and I'm sure is not how it was in the fabled "golden days" is still a damned sight better than 95% of alternative plane driver work places. I know I'll be jumping round the room if I'm given a start date and celebrating my pay rise of 30-40%!

To that end, may I second NRM's question on latestpilotjobs - how would you guys and girls who have gone through the process rate it? I've heard the numeracy questions aren't particularly representative...does it simulate the multitasking aptitude test with any degree of accuracy?

Ta all.

The flight director/shapes game on lpj is similar to, but not exactly the same as, the BA test version. That is about only test that comes close(ish) to the ones used by BA.

BA
 

Whilst studying for the assessments I only concentrated on Maths and Verbal reasoning. I didn't give any time to the computer based assessments. I think you have either got it or you haven't with them, us 80's babies are fortunately from the playstation generation and believe that if you could play one of them you shouldn't have too many worries when it comes to the tests.
Best of luck to all who have applied.

Anyone on the 11th May intro course? PM me. Looking for friends......

Wide body,

2 guys I know who simmed recently got Airbus and a 75 rated mate got 76, so there are a few long haul slots available. I think it's luck of the draw but type ratings don't seem to factor usually. My sim is imminent and happy either way should the gods be smiling. :ok:

Hi folks,

Looking for some advice on whether I should apply. I've done all the usual lists etc, and it can be taken for a given that there would be a financial gain in moving to BA (assuming I could jump through the requisite hoops), but lifestyle is making me have doubts and I'm wondering if there's anyone who has jumped from a similar position would care to share some thoughts.

Currently on a TP with a base in Scottish home town. Happy with the job (mostly), command ready and not a million miles off happening, and both mine and mrs_drift's majority of family and friends living nearby. The money isn't fantastic, and even LHS will still just be TP money, but not starving, and have a reasonable amount of input into my roster. Moving Mrs_D South would have a significant career impact for her and although she likes the idea of a change, I suspect would result in frequent trips north, so really I'm looking at commuting.

Assuming the rules stay the same and I'm not struck down before retirement, I've a smidge over another 30 years of doing this, and the itch to ditch the TP is growing, but the non-flying life is good just now and I'm certain would suffer.

Anybody jumped in and care to share their thoughts/experience?

So why not commute?

Glen King,

No body is coming onto the 767 as it goes out of service in mid 2017. People who are on it are being denied moves to other fleets to avoid wasteful training of new guys for such a short time. This was from a senior manager in the last 7 days.

Max Drift.

Why not apply and give it your all. You will only have a dilemma if you actually get offered a slot. In the meantime use it as an opportunity to keep your interview and selection skills up to date.

Regards

Good advice....

max, you may well get a pay rise by moving to BA, but the other hand don't forget to factor in the cost of buying/living etc etc in the south east in the financial calculations(apologies ahead of time if you've already done that).

As for commuting as an option, yep, certainly possible for Long Haul and certainly possible on a short Haul part time roster....whether it's really possible and sustainable on the sort of rosters full time short haulers are working these days ( and over which you'll have almost zero control) I'll leave for somebody else to answer.

Binsleepin

Must be a breakdown in communication then as another friend has been given a July start date on the 767 as well. Must have their wires crossed. I don't think SH or LH matters that much to either.

I'd say that commuting on a full time SH roster would be almost impossible. The early starts at LHR would often mean you coming in the night before. There are a few "commuting" lines in the bid pack, but they are always going to the mega senior guys.

The real pain in the ass are the long times spent sitting in the canteen (particularly at weekends) waiting 2, 3, or even 4 hours for the next flight. This has no impact on credit for the trip and it makes the days very long. It's totally inefficient and certainly no low cost airline ( which we are compared to when it suits BA for cost comparison) has that. As a result, you spend a long time at work, for not a lot of credit in many lines of work. This has the by-product of allowing you to come in to work for another day, bcoz the 10 hour day you just worked only counts for 6 hours of credit. BALPA completely missed the ball on that one, and I'd suspect the very few SH reps there are on the BACC don't tend to experience those lines of work, so it's not on the radar. Perhaps the reps could pop into the canteen in T5 and gauge opinion from the many crews sat around waiting on any given day.

We can't get back what we gave up, or purposely chose not to negotiate for the 'greater good', so it ain't going to change for the better. BALPA sold EASA as allowing us to spend more time at home bcoz we can work harder when at work, but the reality is we are working harder and spending more days at work. Commuting for a new joiner would be very difficult.

I was offered 767 just yesterday.

I commuted from Glasgow for 5 years whilst on short and, although I wouldn't describe it as a fun experience, it was (4 years ago) manageable. I can't comment on the feasibility of commuting on current rosters but it depends how determined you are to leave your family where they are. It does cost to commute and I eventually got fed up forking out cash for b & b's and the generally soulless existence. On the other hand, if you're playing the long game and are young enough, it might be worth it in the short term while you hold out for long haul.

Just out of interest, how does the LCY-SNN-JFK operation work for Airbus crews? Is it a separate sub-fleet with crew assigned to doing that and nothing else? I've read various conflicting reports. I know it's relatively senior, but I was wondering how the nuts and bolts of it work for LCY trained crews? Do they tend to operate a normal short haul schedule out of LHR, with one or two JFK trips thrown in for good measure? Do LCY crews have to go through an internal selection process, or is it purely seniority driven?

LCY-JFK fleet is, like EVERYTHING else in BA, based on seniority alone. Nothing else. It's a sub-fleet, and won't be available to any new joiner with less than 7-8 years in the company as it's a very cushy number.

Full time commuting from Scotland on SH sounds like quite a challenge at the moment. So max_drift, don't underestimate happiness!

Interesting reading about the viability of commuting BA short haul. I'm a bit too old for BA and frankly not interested anyway. I doubt I would fit their profile, they probably wouldnt want me and thats fine as it doesn't (hard to belive I know) appeal to me anyway in absolute truth.

Anyway, it's interesting reading, especially off the back of the nightstop thread.

I commute currently on long haul. It's too easy to gloss over commuting and how it'll work with say 2 days off. It's tempting to think it'll work out but the reality is if you live over a few hours drive away any longer is a simple plain nightmare and down right impossible/pointless if you have to fly up to Scotland or Ireland. Reading of short haul guys on BA it seems it's mostly 2 days off. If you're in Scotland/Eire. How you going to do that? Honestly it'll be 1 local night at home. Maybe 5 nights a month. I do a block of 10-14 days at home in a go which is nice but downside is you're away for a stretch but prefer that to dabbing my toes into home for 24 hours before being away all week again. Just food for thought. As a commuter myself, if you've home/family more than a few hours drive away think carefully about your lifestyle. My rambling point being don't gloss over the commuting details like I did years back. It's actually the most important point unless you plan to up sticks and move.

As a short haul LCC commuter I'll give you my tuppence worth. First if I were you I would stay where you are. I can't comment on how things work for BA but I work the similar non fixed pattern as BA.

When you finish late you have to go back to your accommodation for a 3/4 hours sleep then get the first flight out in the morning. By the time you commute home, faff about getting home from the airport you're nearly at lunch time. You also have to try being civil to your loved ones when you're shattered having had next to no sleep and been up since 0500 to get that first flight Northbound. Red bull will your new best mate.

If you've just got 2 days off then it's likely 24 hours at home, 48 if you have three days off. You'll spend your life looking up flights, living out of a case. Then what if there's no seats on the plane? I live a 5 hour car or train ride back to base and that'll likely be worse for you being north or the border. Sometimes when I have two days off finishing on a late and starting back on an early, I just stay down in base as its not worth the trip back as there's no time to account for rest and recovering from the previous work week and preparing for the coming week.

Family events will become a thing if the past, your social life will tumble, you'll go long periods without seeing friends and even your family. If you've got relatives who aren't in the best of health either then it's really no fun being miles away from them.

It's all well and good flying a shiny jet and the wage that goes with it, but you can't put a price of being at home with your loved ones and friends and that alone is worth sticking at the TP gig for. I know I would.

Either that or you both move. Commuting without a fixed pattern for a short haul airline is not sustainable long term.

Aerowhisperer,

Congratulations, I have to say though that I am very surprised as it flies in the face of everything I have been told as recently as Wednesday lunchtime. It just shows that the latest plan in BA is only valid for 24 hours, after that its anyones guess.

Regards

binsleepen,


I guess that puts it in the same league as most other airlines in the UK then! ;-)


For info, my timeline from start to finish was:


Applied early Oct 14 (A)
Invitation to assessment 15 days later (A+15 days)
Assessment day one in Jan 15 (A+15 weeks)
Assessment day one result four days later
Assessment day two in Mar 15 (A+22 weeks)
Assessment day two result next day
Simulator assessment two weeks later (A+24 weeks)
Simulator result (by email) 11 days later
Offer in April (A+29 weeks)