First Choice
 

Guy's/Gals,

Given that First Choice are currently recruiting for flight deck on both fleets, would any current FC flight deck be kind enough to pass comment on their lot? Are you all happy bunnies, any particular problems etc....?

Any comments greatly appreciated,

Cuban_8

As a current FC pilot on the Boeing please feel free to send private message and I'll give you whatever help I can....

nb I think 'drivers' belongs to a rather different world than UK IT airlines !!!!!!

"Drivers" might be an appropriate word when viewed with Peter Long's eyes.

First Choice are recruiting, but we don't know what kind of contracts will be offered - there is a possibility that the company will try and get away with "Part Year" contracts again - that is, you work all the hours God sends in the summer and then take the winter off. And yes, you're right, you get 1/2 the going rate. Except they spread it over 12 months to help you get a mortgage.

So if you need a proper job, be careful to check what you are being offered.

FCA as a company are making loads of money, but the pilots have probably the worst Terms and Conditions amongst the UK Charters. Pay is OK but the rest of the package was seriously eroded after Sep 11th and is still not back to that level.

ie. no block window protection, early starts after days off, rubbish leave system, etc. etc.

Command time is looking long - the airline contracted after Sep 11th and the last Command Short List I saw was at least 2 pages long. With only around 10 retirements a year, huge expansion is the only way you'll see a command.

Any other specific questions?

Please do not believe the rubish that Airbus Girl pushes out.
Try looking at www.ppjn.com. That confirms that our pay and conditions are amongst the best.
What terms and conditions have been diluted since 9/11?
With the likes of My Travel in dire trouble and Volare gone yesterday I think we are in a excellent position with good terms and conditions.
So Airbus Girl why dont you poke off elsewhere??

ott,
I agree our pay and package is competitive but I don't agree that our conditions are the best. This summer has been awful with regard to roster disruption and the resulting impact this has on your lifestyle. Not to mention the continual practice of rostering 0600L starts after days off. As for Airbus Girl's other comments I am sorry to say she is not too far off the mark really.

My point EPR man is what is the alternative. Airbus Girl things there are many alternatives and yet still insists on staying and constantly whinging. Rostering earlies after a day off is the norm in most airlines and was with us . We are lucky many dont even have a scheduling agreement to fall back on, indeed neither did we until just a few years ago.
We must continue to push for improved terms and conditions but be realistic at the same time. If you owned the company as our shareholders do, you would insist the pilots work their contracted hours of 900. So lets get real banging of the door is always going to be fruitless. The only mileage we may get is if as an entity the pilot workforce lobbied to change the laws regarding CAP371.
That means letters to MPs followed by letters to MPs etc etc.
Airbus and the like seem more interested in letters to PPrune.
So please stop slagging off a company that provide you with a good salary and look from the position of you being in the management post. (eg. flog the pilots until they can take no more or the rules change). They have taken it for over 10 years few pilots have left. Why change summut that aint broke!!!!That is there attitude and I cant blame them.

"Few pilots have left"



I seem to remember that in about 1996 - 1997, things got so bad that you guys lost about 30% of your pilot work force. That included Fo,s and captains.

OK for the last 8 years few pilots have left!!

Lots left 96-96 because parent holiday company badly managed by Francis Baron - late of RFU - and Flying Colours aka JMC/TC was being set up by some senior ex- Air 2000 management. At same time Airtours were trying to buy First Choice and perception was that a night of very long knives would decimate Air 2000. Whatever happened to Airtours/MYT plans to dominate UK holiday industry ?

I stand by my original post. ott please tell us what conditions (not talking pay here) that the other charter airlines have that are worse than ours, with the items mentioned.

Just because we are not Ryanair doesn't mean that we have good terms and conditions.

This is a post asking about the reality of life at First Choice, so I am being honest about it. ott wants to turn it into a "my company is better than yours" thread which won't really help Cuban 8 decide if this company is one to work for.

Cuban 8, please feel free to ask specifics then we can give you specifics and you can make your own mind up - it depends who you work for now really.

As for people leaving, believe what you like but we now have around 160 FOs. In 2001 we had 200 FOs. There have been no new commands since then, only the demotions after Sep 11th. You do the maths.

I could personally name a number of people including a Captain who have left in the last couple of years to go to the likes of EasyJet, Virgin, Emirates and BA.

Most others airline pension schemes are worse than ours. Loss of license. (many dont even have one). Permanent health insurance is excellent. Flight pay. Day off payments. Flight pay....Shall I carry on. As I mentioned before why dont you leave if the grass is greener.
Cuban 8 feel free to PM me also.

First Choice Airways has just woken up to the fact that pilots are leaving and will probably be leaving in largish numbers. Ther are lots in the various holding pools of Vigin, easy and BA And this is quite something, as just a matter of weeks ago, FCA "was not going to be short of pilots as their not leaving"- being the official line.

These pilots that are leaving, are the ones who are mainly lower down on the seniority lists (although by no means exclusively) who have found that it will be many years before they get a crack at a command. In the region of 6+ years.

The official line from FCA is that we are a mature airline like Britannia and Monarch. This is what happens when the airline stops growing i.e commands created only be from retirements, and you can hardly fault them for that! Where FCA falls down though, is that it is not willing to recognise and reward the potential loyalty and commitment of guys and girls in the RHS who are, or will be long suffering FO's. Monarch for example, give their FO's a notional command seniority, so that when they do eventually get a command, they go on at a higher pay scale. A recognition of their commitment to the airline.

A closer look at terms and conditions of these airlines (available form the BAPLA website and others), will quickly show that FCA is at the bottom of the "mature" airlines. BY for example get an extra weeks leave, pay more and have superior holiday concessions. FCA's holiday concessions have not increased in over 10 years!

Let us not forget why people chose to join FCA in years gone by rather than go to Britannia and Monarch . It was the lure of a quick command and you could easily off set lower terms and conditions against the extra 20k a quick command would bring.

Then easyJet and the likes came along with even poorer terms and conditions.... can you see a pattern?

As for me, I quite like it. Just know that if you want to join a charter airline, without the lure of a quick command you would do well to look at the whole package. Although we are not bad, if you're going to join the bottom of a long seniority list then you might as well join the one that is the best. I don't think it is FCA. Good luck though!

This may have been discussed before, but can someone talk about what the schedules are generally like for First Choice in both the winter and summer? For example, in winter 2 days on 5 days off and in summer 5 days on 2 days off... Again, just general schedules - most likely.

Does the schedule vary based on aircraft for non North Atlantic travel (i.e., 757 vs. A320/A321)?

Lastly, if someone actually had a choice between Easy or First Choice, which should he choose and why? Let's say that person had no preference between charter and scheduled flying and base location was not an issue. Please no flaming.

Cheers

Easy or FCA is a hard one. Easyjet you'll get a much earlier command, but then once you have it, you will spend the rest of your career doing short haul )although admittedly no night flights). With FCA there is always the possibility of long haul, although you can't only do long haul. Otherwise, not a lot in it!

As for schedules, this past summer its mainly been 6 on, 2 off, with some 7 day blocks (very few). An example, in October I had just under 100 hours block time rostered and 7 days off for the month. Also, one of the pairs of days off I had a lateish finish before, and a 6.30am start after. This is not unusual. In the winter we have a reciprocal agreement with a Canadian airline and a number of our pilots depart for Canada for the winter. This of course helps FCA make money, but does mean that the era of quiet winters has passed. I expect to be doing around 70 hours some months in the winter, although you usually get one, maybe two quiet months where not much happens.

There is a limit of 800 hours before overtime kicks in, but they will most likely stop you flying rather than pay you overtime.

I've not done many standbys this year at all - most flights where I was weren't covered, but if you get them then they are 6 hours and done from home (need to get to airport 1.5 hours after being called).

Night flights - varies from base to base. Minimum I would think is around 3 or 4 a month of deep night flights, ie. starting at 11pm or starting at 5/6pm and then back anything up to 8am. Night flights are usually rostered at the end of the run of 6 days on, and usually you do 2 or 3 in a row. There is a total mix of earlies/ lates before the nights. If you do this at least you get an early finish before your days off.

To pick up on ott's comments. We have private health insurance (pay extra for partner/ kids). The regular sick pay, PHI and Loss of Licence are all "self-insured" by First Choice. There are exclusions, certainly on sick pay and LoL that restrict what they will pay for - eg. if you doing anything that they may consider to be risky then they may not meet the claim. The way the policies are written, that could include things like skiing. sailing or quad biking. The private medical insurance doesn't have these extra restrictions. So whether having these policies is a benefit depends on what you do outside of work.

We get day off payments. Its basic salary/224 x 1.5 per day.

You get 104 days off per year, unless you've sold any back to the company.

Flight pay is £2.46 per hour, payable for block times. No sector pay, which I think is what Easy get.

We have a scheduling agreement but it doesn't give block roster protection like Britannia or MyTravel have. You can also be rostered to work earlies after days off (no choice) but the company has to give you £25-75 for it (before tax).

Leave. We get 37 days off (including days in lieu of bank holidays). Max 20 days off in summer. You have to book leave in blocks of 4 days off, and the blocks are pre-determined. So if you want to go on holiday from Sat-Sat in August then you have to see which dates the blocks start on a Saturday. It also means you need to know where you are going on holiday about a year in advance.

There are also RDOs which you can book 3 a month, max. 26 days a year, max 14 per season and only 6 per season at weekends (if you book a Fri, Sat or Sun then you have to book an adjacent day as well, you can't take a single weekend day off).

Pensions. There is a money purchase in operation which is OK, but I think Britannia might still be offering final salary scheme.

Hope this helps!!

I know of people who've left us to go to EasyJet but I don't know of anyone who has come the other way (presumably because we've not been recruiting).

Cuban 8-

You should consider Thomsonfly (Britannia). The 737 is being brought up to the mainline T+C's, with even the Final Salary pension available in the mid-term.

Start on the 737 and end up a skipper on the 767-300 (7e7?). Good rosters, good T+C's, great bunch of guys. Never any summer Captains, etc, etc.

Airbus Girl
The following link is why we must all write to our MPs. If we dont sort out the problem now you soon wont be whinging about an extra sixpence. Flagging cheap labour from Europe is a problem we must all address.

www.ppjn.com and go to:-

22 Nov - Slovac Republic (Major\National\Low Cost) - SkyEurope Airlines

Ouch!!! £23,000 a year for 737-500 Captains...

Airbus Girl

SkyEurope CEO is ex Air 2 Bob!!

Well that makes sense!
As for cheap labour from Europe, I think Air 2000/FCA had their fingers well and truly burnt when they tried that escapade this summer with contract pilots from various parts of mainland Europe didn't they? I understand they are not planning on repeating that little exercise....

Don't count on it!!! Accountants have short memories.
We should cover that probability now before it happens.
C'est la Vie!
"Life is rarely as we would like it to be rather it is exactly as it is."

First Choice Airways.....?
 

Hi,
Is anybody joining FCA this year ?I would be interested to learn what the deal is like that is on offer.

Feel free to PM me with any gen

JOINING first choice? That's a new one on me... right now people are leaving in their droves. Sadly the suits in charge have decided that pilots are an expensive inconvenience and are acting to sort out that little problem by abolishing increments, threatening pensions, and refusing to grant even a modest (RPI) payrise, despite the top suit walking off with about 500 gazillion as a bonus (again). Meanwhile the terms and conditions are being constantly eroded and the union seem powerless to intervene, so I'm afraid all is not too rosey. Add to that the stated intention that the airline will contract, rather than expand, over the foreseeable future and you have a situation where, if you do join, you'll sit in the right hand seat for at least 176 years before you get a command course.

I'm not scaremongering, I'm leaving FCA after 5 years, 3 of which I've spent on the rather ridiculously named "command short list" that currently runs to about 100 names. Literally. There will be 3 promotions this year, that's a fact. You do the math! PS the average serving captain is about 42 years old so they ain't shifting too fast!

PM me if you want any more, but it's not a move I'd recommend, even to my mother-in-law. Regards, H2B

Yeah, but one day you'll fly a 787 while those crummy Nigels flog away in those cr@ppy 777s...

Any chance you get tired of the 787 as fast as you got tired of whatever kit you're in now? :ooh:

I am a FCA FO and whilst there are problems with the Co, you make your decisions based on your priorities.

I flew 620 hours last year! Over the winter months I averaged about 4 flights per month, one of which was longhaul. The summers are tough but you take the rough with the smooth. At least 99% of the guys I fly with are top blokes and I have pretty much flown with all of them in this base and others. The crew are great and they actually talk to you unlike some in other companies one could mention! Yeah the Co would like to screw us but name me a Co that does not! Yeah command ain't gonna come quick, so go to Squeazy, Ryan, DHL or Jet2, whatever if that what you want? It ain't any shorter in Virgin, Thompson or BA. If its better pay you want then you are in the wrong profession old chum! All said and done, FCA share price is nealry 180p and with the 787/GE Engines ordered and the new 767s arriving FCA is not going to down the tubes for want of being inventive, not before Thompson, Monarch, TC and MYT at least.

If you want to work for the flag carrier, well off you go, enjoy; my mates there envy our down route lifestyle and they fly more hours. If you wanna do permanent longhaul off you go to Virgin, personally I like to be at home once in a while (nearly every night in fact) and I like landing these things occasionally and I prefer to do it more than 1.5 times per month, thats what pilots do!

So decide what 's important to you mate and make you judgment accordingly.

I fly for FCA and would love a pair of cirrostratus' rose coloured sunglasses....

4 flights per month!!!! How come all the FOs I know are doing 80 hours flying a month over the winter, just like last winter. Its not just the summers that are tough! You get leave of 37 days, yes, and your 104 days off, but the rest of the time you are working hard. Hmm, wonder which base Cirrostratus is at or maybe I should move to the vintage fleet?

Airbus girl----80*6=480 which allows you 320 for the summer-54 hrs a month cant be bad so are you 1) on overtime and very rich???? or 2) full of it??

Glad to hear you are leaving at last!! I would like to know which fabulous high flying high paying happy company you are going to. Please advise.
On the points you have mentioned (pure gossip again from you), since when have they abolished increments and how on earth do you know the pay rise prior to any announcement??
If Peter Long keeps on making that kind of profit in troubled times I say double his salary.

Sorry Cirrostratus to dissappoint you, but For Thomsom the above statement is incorrect. I joined Britannia March 2003 (having spent a little time with Air2k) and have just completed a Command Evaluation for Thomsonfly, if successful a Command Course will follow very shortly. That's less than 2 years in the company.

Time to command in Britannia Mainline is down from 15 years to about 6-7 due to age demographics and consequent retirements. Over 130 pilots have joined since I joined, so I think that is significantly quicker movement than in FCA.

Regards

PP

Heir2Bob. I hope your are going to Emirates sounds like fun!!
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...hreadid=163630

Because the 777 is such a heap of **** isn't it Riker......

t-bag, I don't fly 80 hours a month when I'm on leave because I like my holidays! However, I can confirm that hitting the maximum duty hours targets seems to be an obsession with rostering and crewing - hitting and exceeding these targets shouldn't really be a concern in winter.

I AM joining FCA this year and by the sounds of things it is just like working with any other airline. Well any other airline I have worked in anyway. Diver you say that there are matters which cant be discussed on an open forum. Please would any of you PM me if there is anything you think I should know before I get started.

Anyway. I look forward to meeting you all soon.

Cruse Alt.
You will enjoy FCA. We all have our problems but ours are minor compared to most. This is Monarchs current situation relating to command. Diver is renowned for being a whinger.

Current Situation:
Ad on website for experienced pilots. Entry on new C scale which has much lower T&C to current crew. MP pension less benifits, lower pay with far fewer increments both F/O and Capt with still approx 10 years to command.

Entry Requirements
Captain
Promoted from within using seniority system. Minimum of 4,000hrs & the average time from joining as a F/O to becoming captain is 10-15 years. (330 is flown on a seniority basis from the 320/321 fleet but you’ll still fly all 3 types.)

ott - What is the web address for the advert you mention? When I go to the FCA website I get a statement saying they are not currently recruiting.

Could you provide a link or post the requirements here? Thanks.

Cosmos.

go to www.ppjn.com

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Cruse Alt.
You will enjoy FCA. We all have our problems but ours are minor compared to most. This is Monarchs current situation relating to command. Diver is renowned for being a whinger.

Current Situation:
Ad on website for experienced pilots. Entry on new C scale which has much lower T&C to current crew. MP pension less benifits, lower pay with far fewer increments both F/O and Capt with still approx 10 years to command.
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Time to command in Monarch is currently running at
6.5 years.

Ott compares Monarch's terms and conditions with FCA's present ones. It is generally thought that these terms and conditions are to be significantly reduced after the latest pay negotiations are completed. They were supposed to have been completed at the begining of January. The general feeling is that the proposals being discussed are so detrimental to our, and new pilots terms and conditions that this is why it is taking so long to get an agreement between BALPA and the company.

In short, if Monarch can introduce a new scale for pilots it would be naive to even suggest that FCA is not working very hard to introduce them too, aswell as further reduce the cost of the airline.

Time to command is longer than Monarch's!!