Haha nice one. I actually had a chat with a trainer about this issue (the best trainer on the Airbus at BA in my opinion and amongst the best guys I’ve ever flown with period with the initials BC) and he agreed with me. Not only did he agree with me but he said it’s a known issue on the fleet and that every DEP pilot he speaks to from easyJet says the exact same thing, as he makes a point of asking them specifically. FACoff has agreed with me. I might be blowing my own trumpet, you can sneak through one selection process if you’re subpar but you don’t pass every single airline selection you’ve ever been through (five in total) if you’re not at least a half decent operator. So no, it’s not just me but thanks for your concern.

If you:
A) watch as a skipper ties himself in knots trying to justify a descent below MSA when it’s gin clear CAVOK out the window
B) are denied flying a visual approach in the same conditions (by a trainer no less) because “it hasn’t been briefed”
C) watch the skipper jump out of his skin after hitting the slightest bit of turbulence
D) Stick the brake fans on with temperatures just edging over 100 degrees with over an hour turnaround
E) have endless discussion about when you’re going to put the gear down (which believe me doesn’t happen in any other airline)
F) are told it is not allowed to plan to land with autobrake off (again this nonsense was spouted to me by a trainer)
G) have to put pen to paper to do a landing distance calculation onto the longest runway in the country in a light A319
H) set approach gates which are utterly pointless because they will go out the window the moment ATC give you radar vectors
I) Run the entire critical data entry process again because during the Before Starts you’ve seen that the CVR push button isn’t on. So now you’re doing it all for the benefit of the AAIB crash investigation :ugh:

I could go on but if you are faced with most of those on at least 50% of the time you go to work and you can keep your patience with it, I salute you sir. You’ve either got tremendous patience or you’ve never been at an airline where you’re treated like an adult.

I agree the post flight debrief should be used for more of this stuff but most the time I just let it slide for the simple reason that BA is so big that you’re unlikely to see them again so it’s easier to just scurry away into the night with zero confrontation. I admit that’s a fault of mine.

Stocious yes that actually happened. I sh1t you not.

A lot of the things that Rex mentions are horribly familiar. Luckily, there are enough people who’ve done time in other airlines or professions to water down those that are institutionalised to ”the BA way”. It may be a bit of a generalisation, but if your oppo hasn’t flown for anyone else, or done anything outside aviation, then it's often a less than pleasant experience.

I have to say I absolutely do not recognise the BA you are describing. It has many faults of which I am happy to complain about, but the vast majority of SH captains I fly with are just looking for an easy day out. I can’t remember the last time I gave or listened to a LHR brief. Now, I do get tired of talking about life time allowances, Tapered annual allowances or massive tax bills but other than the occasional bit of deluded narcisism the guys are generally great.

As for the discussion about who is better, unless you have a solid job offer from both it’s a redundant argument most people don’t get the choice. All I will say is having worked for 4 bankrupt companies I have never felt more secure in my job and with a family to look after nothing in the world is more valuable than that.

I don’t even know where to begin with this; casual racism, slander and barely even written In English. In short, a disgraceful post.

At the risk off continuing off topic:

Yep, but it’s not something that has been permanently built into the “BA way”, it goes in phases and I think ATM we are at “peak brief” ...and don’t forget a “bespoke landing distance calculation”, even into LHR, CAVOK with 10 knots down the strip “because somebody got caught out in Leeds Bradford once....”. I think it’ll change again soon....

And to be fair to BA there are those who still try to give the “Bovingdon , 27L ...” style of brief :) into base, OTOH if you are not a regular into some places (which covers a lot of longhaul) is it just possible a snappy LoCo style brief is not appropriate? And if you are getting long winded briefs from some in the LHS on Shorthaul is it possible some of them have recently come across from Longhaul and still finessing their new style?

One things for sure, I’m not convinced you can always claim a > 2 min brief is an automatic “fail”.

dare I say I don’t really recognise that state of affairs, at least on the Fleet I’m on....FWIW one of the most recent senior senior standards TCs on my fleet was ex Tornadoes, the last few TCs I’ve had dealings with were, for better or worse ex RAF ....so you could perhaps start blaming the Air Force for the training environment but OTOH I gather some of those guys (and others) weren’t backwards at coming forwards in Training meetings when the level of BS got too thick. Also I’m certainly seeing quite a few of training co-pilots on “my” fleet who are ex other commercial operators, often European, so I’m not sure the argument that the majority of trainers at BA haven’t seen anything else or operated in another environment holds any water on all Fleets..is this supposed phenomenon perhaps a big/small Airbus “thing”?