BMI Mainline
 

Is there any likelyhood of recruitment at BMI on to the Airbus? I am aware of a fair few going to BA from there.

Is it a happy place to work? What's the time to command? How many hours a month on average? Is it succeeding?

I have been with BMI just over 5 years and agree it is a great company to work for. The outlook is good. The second A330 is back next month and more mid-haul A321's coming next year.

Good luck to all when recruitment starts again!

Speaking with BB recently, the departures to BA etc are expected to be a slow trickle over a period of time. No unseemly rush for the exit is envisaged.
He's in contact with the desert squadron, some of whom want to come back as and when. He also said we stil have a holding pool, and would tend to call from there as and when before opening to external recruitment.
We would not be a place for people to expect early command opportunities. We do curently have demoted captains, as well as a large number of SFOs ready for command. Keep an eye on the website as any vacancies I think are posted there.

As for other questions, I think Scudbus sums it up quite enthusiatically.

I would agree with the above comments. I've been with bmi for around thirteen years now, nine of them as a pilot. Over that time the airline has certainly changed in shape/size and direction.

In terms of work patterns, I am a SFO on the A320/330, and have averaged no more than around 600 hours in the last few years, so bank on around 50 to 60 hours to month. I think the shorthaul only guys may do slightly more. It may all change in the future as we progress to longer range routes that will demand an increase in our flying hours.

The other great thing about bmi is the variety of work (if that's your cup of tea). I've done anything from low cost (bmi baby), through to charters, longhaul, mid haul, domestic and european nightstops. The training is also excellent and I've nothing but good things to say about this part of the company.

The company has certainly been through some tough times with a pretty savage redundancy program a few years back. The financial performance is certainly coming together, but with a lot more work to do. I think the new CEO, and indeed flight operations management, are committed to turning the company around, and any newfound optimism in the troops certainly filters down from the man at the top, who has done a fantastic job at his previous airlines.

In terms of the future, I believe we will probably progress to longer range routes within europe and the middle east, coupled with a return to transatlantic flying as stated by the new CEO. Also, it is worth noting we are one of the few airlines at Heathrow that can expand. With a sizeable chunk of slots - that in the past have been used for slot fillers/leased out to other airlines - when these return or are used for longer range routes = expansion and hopefully upwards movement for all of us... :D

Money. Hmm, I think the pension rates for the DC scheme are currently around 11% from the company for a minumium 5% contribution from me.... I don't think new joiners will get this, and is certainly something I believe the union are working on. In terms of take home pay, I average around £3300 in my main pay cheque, with around £700 in flight pay paid mid month. That has been with a good amount of nightstops away.

Overall, a good place to work. Not perfect....but where is? ;) The greatest thing about bmi is the people who work there. I have spent many a downroute trip with most crew very sociable and always up for a beer or party!

Good luck, let me know if you need any further information! :ok:

Lex

Scubus

Its great to have someone on here with so much experience in the company. Can you let me know if you're at least an SFO now? Are there any benefits to it? Also, im interested if you feel you will (as a company) pull through the hard times as I heard things arent looking so good? 330's possibly?

WF

It's nice to read something positive for a change, and encouraging to see thre are still employers who people want to work for. Good luck to all. My question to all those lucky enough to be on the inside here is, would BMI ever get to the stage where they would take a light jet pilot ( 5.6 tonnes) with circa 2500 hours, and if so, is that maybe a couple of years off?

Stay safe.
G

Lex

Do you do many standbys in the company as a whole? Can you give us a bit of detail on a typical roster with days off etc? How long do you think it is to command? 10 years? (I know things can be fluid).

Lastly, any signs of external recruitment in the next 1-2 years that you know of?

Thanks

CC

Hi CC

I think the company will recruit externally in the next few years – but – this is my opinion only.

We are just about to repromote some of the demoted Captains from a year or so ago, plus there are some guys leaving for BA and a couple to VS. In addition, there should be some expansion at the back end of this year/start of 2012 with the arrival of three extra A321s.

I know we still have some guys that were made redundant and headed out to the ME waiting to come back before any external recruitment begins. Any big recruitment will be driven by expansion of the long haul fleet.

In terms of time to command, as you say, an entirely moveable feast. I think the figure at the moment is around 12 years. The contraction in the company size in the last few years, plus the change in retirement age has contributed to this.

I am a Mixed Fleet pilot, so I do a period of reserve (standby) three times a year. Each of these used to be of duration 12 – 14 days I think. The A320 fleet do on average a standby block of five days duration every roster period, so probably end up with about the same amount of standby. Typical Roster:

Day 1 OFF
Day 2 OFF
Day 3-8 LHR-IST-DXB-IST-LHR (A330 Turkish Wet Lease trip)
Day 9 OFF
Day 10 OFF
Day 11 OFF
Day 12 LHR-MXP-LHR
Day 13 LHR-DUB-LHR-DUB-LHR
Day 14 OFF
Day 15 OFF
Day 16-20 LHR-BEY-LHR (Midhaul trip)
Day 21 OFF
Day 22 OFF
Day 23 OFF
Day 24-27 LHR-RUH-LHR (A330 trip)
Day 28 OFF


Lex

Question for Lex
 

How can you have been a pilot at bmi 9 years? 9 years ago, soon after 9/11, 67 of us FO's were told to leave, the original number being over 100. I certainly chose not to return, being eventually offered CWL at Baby. Oerhaps most other sacked pilots also refused the insulting offer, in which case room would have been made for new folk. Not good. You also make reference to a savage job-cut programme. Sounds like bmi are ok if you can get clear of their periodic job-cuts. I despised that old diva Bishop, and his sycophants. I hope you have better management there now. Your roster looks easy enough!

Mr.Bloggs, you wouldn't recognise the place.

I've noticed a difference at bmi in just the short time I've been there. As a place to work, bmi is excellent. The people are superb and the working environment great. Apart from the balance sheet, then I think it's definately one of the best airlines to work at long term. It might frustrate at times as the modernisation programme takes time to roll through, but that's hardly surprising thanks to the mess a certain previous owner left it in.

I'm very happy there and I'm a notoriously picky so and so.

Just to back up what as been said about Bmi.

I have just started my fourth year there, and am very happy. It was a tough last year with Lufthansa starting the restructuring program with a load of guys forced into taking voluntary redundancy, but things are starting to change slowly with Wolfgang Prock-Schauer in charge. We have just started to see some of the guys return who took VR, which is great for the airline and great for them. It will be great to see some new faces in the future too.

With a network that covers parts of the UK, Ireland, Europe, Africa, Russia and the middle east, it is a great airline for new pilots to start with. You get to build your experience at a fair rate of knots flying into some interesting places, and benefit from a training program that is respected in the industry.

I can only reiterate one of things that makes Bmi so special are the people that work there. 99 times out of a 100 it is a pleasure to go to work.

I look forward to the future of Bmi.

Lex

Thank you so much for the info, that's alot of days off :} is that typical for the 320 only chaps too?

Another question if I may, I am looking at relocating to the M4 corridor (no idea where yet), let assume I have less than a 1hr commute to LHR, how easy is it to get to the crew room as far as time is concerned once you pull up in the car park? What I am really getting at is how long is it to report for standby and how much extra time do you need once you arrive at LHR to actually check in on the system?

Thanks once again.

CAT3

Thanks for the info too. I would love to make a career out of bmi, here's hoping for some external recruitment in the next 2 years or so.

CC

CC,

The car park for crew is located on the north side of LHR, by the Park Inn hotel, just off the bath road.

If you time is right, you can usually get into the crew room and report for duty in about 13 mins, from the time you have hopped on the bus. The crew room is now located airside, so you have to go through security before you report, so depending on how busy security is will depend of time of course.

Oh, and days off for the A320 guys is representative of what Lex has posted. Mind you in February I was rostered 7 days off before my 2 week leave, so had most of the month off :}.

All the best.

I'm glad things have improved. I worked there for 15 years before leaving for another airline four years ago (just before BMed) and haven't missed it on one working day since.

CC

Standby call out is 2 hours for pilots which includes reporting airside. Subtracting the 20 minutes worst case scenario of having just missed a car park bus & passing through security you still have quite a large chunk of M4 corridor at your disposal.

I would also like to echo the comments above about working for bmi.

TTO
(15 years with the company)

I have also noticed how much more pleasant the working atmosphere has become at bmi. Rosters should average out at 10 days off in every 28; for my last few I have generally only had 9, so I'm now on a larger block of days off to make up the numbers.
As already posted, narrowbody pilots are usually rostered a 5 day block of standbys in every roster period; this is almost always changed to flying (not necessarily the whole block, but some of it) before the standby block actually starts. On the whole I would estimate I fly about 90-95% of my standbys; airport standbys, on the other hand, I probably only fly about 2/3 of them.
There is only one destination in the route network that I dislike flying to; unfortunately so do most of the pilots, so it is rarely possible to swap it away!

Out of pure curiosity what is that destination??? Surely can't be worse than Manila or Bombay!!!!

The Cav:ok:

How about Norilsk (UOOO). Not that we ever did fly there...:}

I think the destination referred to is LHR cav :}

I imagine it would either be Freetown or Tehran depending on your point of view.

No contest. The cold beer is much better at FNA:ok:

I'm not going to name the destination because this is an open thread and the pax at that destination hate us enough already- or so all the letters we see in their local rag suggest...

Tail-take-off / CAT3 etc

Thank you guys for all the information. I very much appreciate it. I now know which airline I am targeting once recruitment opens up. One hopes they like Q400 drivers. :ok:

So according to PPJN BMI Mainline have already taken some people on this year and have a couple more courses planned for this year - are they recruiting or are these people from holdpools/ previously laid off?

Is it case of you need to know someone/ have an FTO recommendation to get a look in?

Some of the P2F guys have been taken on so i've heard

I was wondering why I kept seeing 2 stripers that looked 20 years old flying for BMI when they made a load of guys with 1500 + hours redundant.

So are they still doing the pay to fly scheme? Whether they are or not is not my concern and I am not looking to take this thread down that road however does that mean they wont be looking for TRd people with experience?

P2F has stopped at bmi.

When? Because when I was finishing a TR at OAA in March (with a job at an airline, OAA just contracted to provide TR), there were a course of BMI P2F starting...

All I know is I have seen three guys now who looked genuinely no more than 21 years old, 8 stone wet, heads low walking behind grey haired captains and they had 2 stripes. There are ex BMI guys in my current company and they have upwards of 1500 hours and some 3000 hours. Why would they have been let go out of turn? So I am guessing these guys are new - whether they have paid to fly or not, I am pretty sure they are new. Are BMI recruiting as PPJN say they are - with further courses to come? How many are on a course?

As far as I know they've all finished or are about too. Won't be anymore P2F at bmi.

Sounds like an addict - 'I am on my last one, let me just finish this one'. If they like those schemes then they like them - it's really the choice of the individuals and the company. I just don't want to waste my time filling in their long winded application form, which is the longest I have ever come across for just a speculative registration.

That aside are they looking to recruit as PPJN says? How many do you think they'll need? What are their preferred requirements? Thank you very much for any infomation you can provide.

There are 6 new guys going through the sim and groundschool, I guess we have run out of "returnees" for the time being. I know some of the very few P2F people who were thought worth employing had interviews and I think they make up some of the six, the rest are from the hold pool. At least two are company employees who have been working in the cabin for 2-3 years and they are having their ratings paid for. Looking forward to seeing all the new people out on the line.

Last P2F people went through some months ago, none were ever taking the place of a bmi FO, anybody whose flight was used for P2F training was given a day off with the option to turn up, sit on the j/s and claim allowances and if they wanted to, strangely I don't think many did.

Guys,

There was a positive feel for recruitment in Bmi with the prospect of new aeroplanes at the end of this year, but as already stated in previous posts, these aircraft are now going to be absorbed into Lufthansa therefore they will not be recruiting addition pilots for fleet expansion.

The new guys that have started recently are replacing people that have gone to BA and a couple to Virgin. This source of pilots has come from guys wanting to come back from the middle east and Easy who took VR last year and the pilots that were coming back off the 75. There are also 4 guys I think that have been waiting for 3 years in the hold pool, which is great for them.

Also, to confirm, that Bmi is no longer providing line training to cadets. The last course, I think, is now finished.

I was just asking because of what was written on PPJN - that there will be two further courses this year and also because I had seen very new looking people in uniform. I am not particularly pinning my hopes on BMI specifically, more trying to find out what's out there.

I appreciate you may be an employee of the airline but how do you know so confidently their recruitment plans? I am an employee of mine and I would just be guessing as to what they will do and I'd almost certainly be wide of the mark!

It's not just line pilots or wannabees who read this forum, that I can promise you.

Some of us know an awful lot more than we'd ever put on a public forum.

We are still losing people to BA and I know for a fact that there are people in the BA hold pool who are awaiting dates. A further course is a distinct possibility I would say but its down to BA's timing and not a certainty.