Yep, the first of that generation of cadets were already on line when I joined BA (as a DEP) in the very late 80's and a significant number also came on line over the next few years. Many of those individuals are, almost 30 years later, sitting very high on their senority lists with potentially 10-15 years more to go until reaching 65.
As you rightly say:" I wouldn't foresee them going anywhere, anytime soon."

How do you see BA looking?
Reduction in T+C's or product dilution?

BAs T&Cs are on a slippery slope , it does not take a genius to figure that out !
Greedy shareholders at the top and ever increasing pressure from the likes of Norwegian etc..
BA is an un streamlined beast compared to the ruthless efficiency of today's Locos .
One of the Best ways to make more profit margin is to reduce T&Cs

Do we really need to start going down this path? This site is overwhelmingly negative as it is. The thing is all of these observations would be great if aviation as an industry was in isolation but tell me one industry that is immune to the overall trend nowadays. Hell I was even speaking to a lawyer a while back who was complaining about the exact same trends that we observe.

The other problem is people always remember the past with rose tinted spectacles and have a serious lack of perspective. To illustrate, I heard someone on the train the other day talking about the terror zeitgeist of today and seriously describing the 1990's as peaceful and carefree! Presumably they were living under a rock during the WTC Bombing, Luxor Massacre, Rwandan Genocide, Bosnian conflict and genocide, Gulf War, Columbine Massacre, Manchester Bombing, Paris Metro Bombings, Air France Algiers Hijack, Tokyo Subway Sarin gas attack, bomb attack on the 1996 Olympics and Oklahoma bombing etc etc.

Snapper5 you don't even work for us so how you can be party to what's going on re Terms and Conditions to start chipping in I don't know.

I know 4 guys in BA , 3 on SH and 1 on the 787
So have a good understanding on what it's like .
I'm not trying to get anyone down but it's the truth

Wow. I know 6 guys. Standby for my 2 pence worth very soon. "You'll be amazed". As Donald Trump might say.

Well done you ! I'm sure all six are "living the dream"

You'd be amazed.

VJW........I think you believe the hype. I could go to EZY and gain a pay rise in the region of 25k right now. A few of my colleague recently took EZY offers DEC. There have been a recent handful of LH FO's who have given notice. Simple truth is BA is good, it's average and really really crap, it just depends what you want from it.

Snapper......your probably right but flight ops has changed a lot over the past few years. T&C have not been squeezed but we have been asked to do more for the same. LOCO guys bang out 4 sectors out of a regional base but we bang out three from LHR. The truth is we are working to EASA FTL's and more trip combinations will work us close to the maximum hours. I don't think we come up against the 900hr limit easily but the duty time is more of an issue. BA has a lot of modernising to do but flight ops is a long way down that road. Will we see T&C's reduce? Probably indirectly and probably for new joiners in the future but we are never going to be a LOCO and if we were then actually some of use would get a pay rise.

Where are the LH FOs heading for?

Back to the LOCOs where they came from. I don't think it speaks volumes either way it just highlights that BA is not for everyone. If you want to be at home at night, close to home etc then I guess you would hate BA at the bottom of any list.

Yeah that's a fair point. Isn't your fabled bid system being changed? Seems pretty drastic given a lot of the pluses on here seem regarding obtaining chunks of time off from using the system. I'd ask if this new thing would be a positive but if a company agrees to something it usually has glaring catches in my experience :}

Its worse than that, its the system the company practically begged the union to get the pilot workforce to agree to and when it came to a vote the suckers went for it having rejected an almost identical proposal only a short time before. All it needed was a few well placed sweeteners and the suckers went for it and voted it through. :ugh:

Wt actual?! Good luck with that one if the firm pushed for it.

It's all democratic......we vote and get the wrong answer. We are then told we are naughty pilots and are told we must vote again until till we get the right answer.

Bidline is over rated but the limited ability to trade work is beneficial.

Bear in mind that 25k not only gets taxed to the high heavens, but also buys you considerable fatigue and roster disruption. Furthermore your salary at BA will only ever improve, as will your seniority and therefore lifestyle. EZY will have you working the same 5 day min rest/max FDP duties with the same endless roster changes until you're forced into part time - at which point of course that extra cash disappears anyway.

Ultimately I suppose the same is true, EZY has ups and downs depending on what you want from it. Invariably, however, the things you want are usually the things the company doesn't provide.

BA (to my knowledge) is a good employer, offers stability, lifestyle, a career path and a half decent salary. I really do believe some people don't know how good they've got it.

That's probably the most accurate comment you will find on here.

To clear up a few misconceptions

On BA SH here. Last financial year I spent 120 days in a hotel on BA duty.

That is the major difference between EJ and BA.
A 5 on 4 off, 5 on 3 off contract with BA's 4 blocks of a week's leave and 10 lieu days (for missed bank holidays) or as we call them 2 x Duty Free Weeks. What does that get you?

Add all those days off up, and you end up in BA
1. Working around 9 days more per year than a 5/4/5/3 EJ pilot and
2. Being away from home around 120 nights.

Short Haul in BA is not greener than the grass of EJ. Just different. And considerably less often at home. But once you gain seniority, you're home often at a time when you want to be.

I'd be very interested to hear from any pilots who think they spend more time in uniform (or in hotels away from home!) than BA SH pilots!

I once went a week before I realised I'd worn no clothes other than BA uniform!

Of course it does save on wardrobe costs!

Yeah i bumped in to a very nice BA pilot and his wife in a very expensive 5 star Edinburgh city centre hotel which BA uses for SH night stops .........Anyone who thinks that will continue is likely to be disappointed .

Must be costing an absolute fortune .Enjoy it whilst you can.

Supposedly it costs around £60million a year for all of the HOTAC expenses

Just to offer an extra opinion from an insider.... joined a a year or so ago on LH and get an average of 4 trips a month equating to around 10-12 nights out of bed a month.

Really enjoying the job and I personally think BA is a good employer....and whilst Im tired at the end of a trip, it pales in comparison to the fatigue I had at my previous LOCO. Theres certainly no way Id be handing my notice in to go back to it as someone mentioned above.

Horses for courses.

Point of order:

Duty Free Weeks (for a full-time pilot) are 2 x 7 day blocks plus a non-assignable day so up to sixteen days off annually, one DFW per season.

This gives a total of 42 leave/DFW days per year plus two Non-assignable days (with DFW) and four "wrap days" per week of leave. Overall, 60 days off associated with leave or DFW. All DFW and leave days have credit hours attached (a matter of opinion whether you consider this credit to be sufficient - most don't), NA and wrap days do not.

Shabon - 10 to 12 nights a month out of your own bed or 10 to 12 nights a month out of any bed? I assume (and hope!) not the latter?

I was one of the aforementioned LH FOs who joined BA last year and then went back to my loco origins. I'm a lot less tired being back at my loco but that's just because I couldn't stand the LH lifestyle of trying to sleep at times my body didn't want to. We're all different and only those that try it can say whether it's for them or not.

From reading prune & talking to friends, it does seem BA is "a tale of two airlines"; those on Long Haul who love it, spend 1 week - 10 days away from home each month, get to see the world and love it, and those on Short Haul, who are bouncing off duty hours limits, spending more time in hotels than at home, building fatigue and generally getting the brown end of the stick (their words - not mine!) from senior management.

Not that much of this matters, as we stare at our respective hold pool exits approaching, hearing rumours of unpaid leave, over crewing, delayed courses for cadets etc. It does leave a bit of a sour taste having put a hell of a lot of work in to get into the pool, only for radio silence... Would it stop me re applying? Probably not, which I guess says a lot.

Anyone know if a hold pool update is scheduled?

As has been said horses for courses..when Concorde was grounded temporarily the pilots got briefly redeployed to other Fleets. There were a few who admitted to struggling with the increased need for nights out of bed and were relatively relieved when they could return to the supersonic fleet....also in more benevolent times there were pilots who crossed over from Short Haul, struggled with the roster pattern, and were allowed to return on medical grounds to their short haul fleet. No criticism is intended of either of the above groups, simply pointing out that with the best will in the world some really struggle with the Long Haul roster pattern.

To add to the "nights" out of bed discussion,...easy to end up with 5 "short" long haul trips (e.g. JFK, ORD, The Gulf ) in a month...assume just about every Longhaul out and back trip has one overnight sector, (though a few have none by way of balance some have night sectors both ways) and also at least one night in a hotel.....there's your ten nights away from home...and that's probably about the least you can do in a full month.

As far as the other discussion about T&Cs..are they as good as they were? No.
Will they stay at the current level? No.
Is the rate of "decay" in T&Cs going to increase or decrease? Your guess is as good as mine.

The former fortunately, if it were the latter I might have a differing opinion..!

Glad you've made it back to where you prefer! All the best

1 week away from home a month, ha where did you read that? I'll try and be factual as my roster has been.

Min trip length generally 3 days. On my fleet usually 3-4 day trips. Usually 5 ish, sometimes almost 6 trips on a busy month without leave depending on stacks of variables. Arriving back home before lunch on day 3 isn't a really free day, certainly doesn't feel like it (unless your superman) as you normally have to hit the hay to make it through to the eve.

Best bet is to live near so you don't have to travel in night before on a morning report. But near to T5 in London terms is living in T3 ;).

On leave free months, seems to work average out in region of 11-14 days off a month/ usefully at home (presuming you don't travel to near lhr night before work). Those days off are split into little bits between trips.

Wireless

This sometimes comes over as a pot half full/half empty argument but in my book any day involving work is a working day!

Three day trip - Report time on day one can often leave you no useful time at all at home pre going to work (and FWIW even Longhaul has some pre 0800 local reports), day two you are obviously (?) away, and even if you get in early on day three by the time you have probably/possibly caught up on sleep after your "nightshift" it can often be pretty much be a "dead" day. Multiply it up (worse case) by perhaps 5 or even 6 trips a month and see what's left of the month.

Yeah, I agree.

For me it isn't a pot half/full empty thing it's more basic fact of life. No such thing as a free lunch.

I think of it this way. There is a reason you're arriving into LHR at 0900. That is you've missed that night in bed. Nothing in life is free as they say. All you've done is deferred what you should've been doing that night, on your trip, to doing into on your time off - sleeping.

So when you go arrive back home, you could power through. I find it just consists of dribbling in a corner feeling quite unwell and then passing out with your dinner on the floor ;-). So you go to sleep, wake up feeling drugged then sleep that night, normally like a corpse.

Keeping in mind 2 days later (1.5 if you travel night before) you're meant to have tried to recover what you lost on that last overnight, plus be rested to go back to starting in the morning. If you don't try to get it back you're travelling down the highway to burnout town pretty quickly :-)

Also, when I say useful day at home, day 3 of a trip can be quite a problematic half day at home depending how you handle it / partner's sympathy to Mr Dead, corpse like state etc.

Oh it's not just me then....:ok:

Mow the lawn, wash the car, dig the garden. Accounts best avoided I find. ;)

No, I call day 3/return home day my "just inching off being single/right, that's it I'm jacking this LH crap in if I live through the night and don't melt or self combust along with the sofa" day. :E

Day 1 off is "being single immediate threat over/it's ok really, just have a small bit of washing and some chores" day.

Day 2 off is....." more chores/ oh not that bloody suitcase again [insert location of where you live]" day

Can someone who knows what's what say roughly how widespread this unpaid leave offer is.
Has it been offered to all fleets?
I thought there were a fair few long haulers knocking up against 900H?

Not sure what level of detail it's safe to print here, so forgive me if I simply say it's not across the board; it's targetted to about half a dozen specific combinations of Fleets and seats. It's certainly looks like it's available widely on short/midhaul haul types, it's slightly less available on longhaul....I'll let those with an interest draw their own conclusions.

The 900 hour'ish Longhaulers are separate issue and I'm sure will be dealt with as per the usual longstanding procedure ( i.e. via the monthly bid process by to some extent limiting trip selection), rather than standing down targetted indviduals as part of an unpaid leave process.

Thank you Wiggy.

As a swimmer I have not been over encouraged by the posts over the last few days. Suspect I will be hanging around north of London for a bit longer. Still, its better than Doha.

With any luck we will be allowed to remain in the pool until there is a requirement. It's not in BA's interest to make us do it all again.
To be fair, the plan changes very quickly so what's happening now doesn't guarantee what's going to happen next year.
Last year there was unpaid voluntary leave offered on short haul. DEP's joined in Jan/Feb. Go figure.

Hope you are right applecrumble but BA do have history here.

I know, fingers crossed.
I would hope that it is hard to justify chucking suitable candidates out of the pool when it costs so much. In this day and age of cost cutting and competition.