Would somebody on PPY50 mind saying how much a year you could expect to earn with regards to variable pay? I know youthinkso said 8k over the summer period, max. I was looking for an indication on the annual variable pay covering the winter as well. I wouldn't be willing to leave my family and head to Canada for 5 months. I appreciate this will change from base to base and fleets etc, just a good idea on annual variable pay with out overtime would be a great help. initial sums don't make this look like a great move. It would take approx 7 years to start earning the same salary and I would be about £100k down.:sad:

In the winter it really does go the other way. Expect to fly as little as 1 flight a month worst case so your income i'd say is 90%+ made up from your PPY50 salary with VERY little added on for flight pay etc and i don't think i did a single flexi last winter as there simply were none going.

Thomson recruitment.
 

What does the Canada detachment involve in terms of pay, getting out there, accommodation, etc?

Based on the C-reg operation the company pay for your travel out plus an allowance for friends and family to visit (around £4k worth of flight tickets I total). You get your own 2 bed apartment and a car for the duration of the detachment. I calculated approx £13k additional net if I go compared to if I stay at home for the winter. That's based on around £3k back pay for the summer worked on PPY uplifted to 100% salary, £2k per month in tax free allowance and a bonus of around £2k net when you get home. I am in year 2 of PPY and IF I goto Canada based on my earnings so far this year (with a bit of flexible thrown in) I have calculated I'll make approx £80k gross.

Obviously depends how many of us get to go and it's all based on union and company politics, oh and seniority of course. As others have said the basic in year one with the ridiculous reduction for type rating is hard. However it's a nice place to work, nice aircraft, friendly FD and CC and very professional on the whole. Worse places to be and I've worked for a few airlines in the past.

Hope that helps

During a busy summer month. What's the roster like?

Days on, off? 90hrs? Earlies, lates?

Are all the flights turn arounds?

Some really useful info from previous posters to date.

Much appreciated.

From current experience 10 days off per month. You wont do less than 90 hours a month (this year people have been going over 100 hours in the last 28 days, I didn't know this but apparently this is legal if it happens during the return sector) A mix of very early flights, lates and deep nights (some landing as late as 8 or 9am). All flights are turn arounds on the 737 apart from sharm where its either a level 2 turn-around or a 1 or 2 night stop with yourself and your colleague (cabin crew fly back), 757 the same apart from they also do the same with cape verde islands and the 787 is mainly long haul but again that would take years for new joiners to get onto IMO.

Thanks to the guys who replied to my earlier questions. All this information you are supplying is extremely useful because especially the guys with families / mortgages and flight training loans would not be able to make an informed decision about what to do without all of this detail - that's not supplied in the job advert.

One last question :O - how popular is BHX as a base?

No promises obviously, but I doubt it would be too difficult to get in.

How can you as a Pilot for Thomson Airways evoke the holiday spirit with our passengers

Annouce a free bar shortly after take off and then at the top of climb proceed into the cabin and to start the onboard entertainment and lead the Conga

Does anyone have a better answer?;)

Play the chicken song over the PA during boarding.

For better or worse, in the new world of recruitment, this and similar questions are highly important. Flippant answers or "not applicable" will be the end of the line for that application. (Very recently from a Thomson pilot manager).

Glad I'm not applying now, I'd have no chance but them's the rules.

Good luck everyone!
Beakor

Oh yes I can well remember at a Trainer's meeting being informed by a pilot 'manager' ( long gone to screw up another airline, fortunately) that " we are not normal pilots, we are holiday pilots... " ffs, what does that mean...? Give me strength. Oh, and btw if you are interested in command be prepared to go to a shop ( full uniform, naturally) and sell holidays; to show incredulity at what is on the face of it a ludicrous concept for the pilot group is to be ostracised from command selection. Pass the vaseline. We live in strange times... For all you Daily Mail readers and in the words of Richard Littlejohn, " you couldn't make it up".

Welcome to Thomson IT!

Just logged in to complete, as I have been the same with work over the weekend and when I click 'continue application' I then get a message stating that the job is no longer available.

Not very friendly considering there was no warning of a closing date on their
website or in any part of the application form.

The closing date was yesterday, it was clearly defined on the website, perhaps that is why people couldn't submit yesterday evening?

it certainly was not 'clearly defined' - hence myself and another poster being completely unaware of it.

In post #222 it's stated that the closing date was 23rd August at midnight.

Closing Date
 

All part of the initiative test boys and girls - RTFQ.

Seriously though, I'm not sure whether you should be sad that you missed out, or relieved that you won't be subject to new joiner T&Cs that many of us in the airline view as utterly shameful.

Roster
 

Hi all,
Can anybody post a typical 737 and 757/767 roster.
Thanks for all the shared informations.

Teobull,

There is no such thing as a typical roster really, Carmen rosters duties to get you as close as it can to the maximum to cover all duties because we don't have enough pilots in either rank, this means that your Carmen bids (trying to get days off) generally get ignored in the summer because its priority is to crew all flights. Your only guarantee is to have 10 days off per month.

One roster could see you with 7 days on, one off, 5 on,two off etc etc with a combination of early starts, night duties, afternoon duties etc, or it could be all mornings, all nights, all afternoons, put in a bid for preferences (early, lates, nights etc) generally gets ignored for reason as stated above.

Asking anyone who has come to the airline on a previous pattern of 5 on 4 off will tell you the flying is much more fatiguing due to the rostering and doing deep nights and because we don't get days off in blocks your off time is of little value apart from trying to recover (in the summer). As nice as it would be to have days off in blocks our rostering department have decided to penalise the system for doing this so you get occasional single days off and sometimes a pair together, rarely more, unless using leave or guaranteed days off that have to be booked a year to six months in advance.

If you plan on not being able to make any plans in the summer you won't be disappointed, short term time off is a problem for line pilots, and don't underestimate the impact this will have on your lifestyle, family and friends.

lifestyle and rostering is and has been voted as the number one gripe by Thomson pilots for the last few years, yet nothing changes, there was supposed to be something introduced this year as part of last years pay deal that would improve it but seems it was another empty promise.

Can't wait for new EASA FTL's to make all the above worse !:ugh: