Very interested to know more information on the Forces pilot question...

I’ll leave it with this: I’ve had to sort out a couple of issues out in the last few months where there has been an assumption made by some on board that two rings meant straight out of flying school. The irony of it was in both cases the problem makers themselves had only been in the company 5 minutes.........

I quite like my two stripes. Peoples expectations are automatically lowered, and I usually don't disappoint :E

No delicate sensibilities damaged here although some of your points do require challenging with some facts. Where I agree with you I'm not shy about stating it.

1. It's been said in posts above but who on earth cares how many stripes you have. We're all adults here, you would hope, and if someone treats you differently because you have 2 stripes then tell them to poke off! They are clearly idiots. I'm assuming that is your problem, and not the physical absence of a third stripe. For if that is your problem I fear you may be beyond help...

2. Your point about A380 Fo's not being able to land is misleading. It was a training capacity issue, not a trust issue as has already been pointed out.

3. I share your scepticism over JSS but ultimately until it comes in, no one definitively knows what its going to be like. We're all speculating. I do, however, mourn the loss of bidline like many of my colleagues.

4. It's uncommon to do 5 long haul trips a month, certainly on my fleet. It's only happened to me once. Ive never done 6, and I've never done more than 3 on a month when I've had leave. Next month on a blind line with leave I have 2 trips.

5. I agree the 34 point pay scale sucks and it must be one of the main reasons that people think twice before signing on the line.

6. You might do 3 reserve periods a year to begin with. But that won't go on forever. If you are a long haul DEP it will go on longer than short haul, and that is one of the main advantages of taking a short haul DEP job - a more rapidly advancing "on fleet" seniority. The first couple of years aren't great for reserve and you'll probably do it over Christmas at least once. I didn't do a single reserve for my last two years on the airbus. I've done 1 reserve since I went to long haul 18 months ago.

7. The pensions changes are well documented elsewhere, but it's disingenuous to infer, as your post reads to me, that BARP is some recent development. NAPS closed to new joiners a LONG time ago now, much as MANY final salary schemes at other companies did. The new BARP is an improvement on what has been offered for many years now. Quoting annuity rates is a waste of time. You'd have to be nuts to buy an annuity today.

I'm glad you're happy at Ryanair and I do think the decision about whether to leave a loco command to join BA has become much more balanced in recent years. You can't escape the reality though, and please don't gloss over it, that Ryanair is hardly a happy place to work for many of it's "employees" (self employed, contractors, delete as appropriate). Sure, you get paid more as a Ryanair Captain than as a BA DEP. Shock horror. I would question whether Ryanair is a particularly good employer compared to BA when you look beyond the financial side of things. That's borne out by the statistics in terms of the sheer volume of resignations from Ryanair over a typical year versus resignations from BA. I don't need to be BA's biggest cheerleader to point that out either.

Ultimately BA is far from perfect. Financially you will be better off taking a command at RYR or EZY, no contest. If you're reading this and that is what motivates you then forget BA. Lets not pretend though that doing so is without its downsides. It's a lifetime of multiple sector, high intensity short haul flying with all the stresses that come along with that. Working for a company, in Ryanair's case, who don't even try to hide their contempt for the pilot workforce.

I won't apologise for making the case for working for BA. There's plenty wrong with it, but it's still the best flying job I've ever had and when I'm cycling down the beach or sat by the pool with a cold beer my previous loco job seems a MILLION miles away. Oh and by the way, I'll happily join the picket line to protect our terms and conditions, just as soon as we are given the chance.

Well said NM.

Finally some balanced truth!

Well said Northern Monkey, couldn't agree more with what you wrote. Also I second what you said as a DEP joining Shorthaul, you will climb the fleet seniority ladder much quicker then if you join as a DEP Longhaul (were you could actually go downwards on the fleet seniority ladder if more senior pilots move from SH to LH). Climbing the fleet seniority ladder means an improved lifestyle.

If I had to guess, I would say Doppio was on the 747 where 5 trips a month is the norm. However, the 787 does indeed look like 4 trips is normal. So balance yes, but both posters speak the truth. I have just compared March rosters.

I stand corrected on the landing policy for A380 FO's based solely on inexperience.

I passed assessment May 2016, NTR, was offered 747 last week. Good luck!

Very true Doppio, only did 11 landings in the aircraft last year and 485hrs. A far cry from my previous fleet.

DEP onto the 380 from EZY just under two years ago.

Like many posters said, it's not perfect. There is the obvious concern that things will carry on getting worse as Mr Cruz keeps on cutting costs. But I definitely don't regret it.

Bad things:
- poor IT and incredibly confusing internal processes e.g. Where do the bid results get published? In a place called "Forums". Makes sense.
- fairly unharmonious relationship between cabin crew and flight deck (EZY was great for that)
- difficult life planning unless you are senior
- nobody answers their phones. No point leaving messages either. It's chronic. And that's when you have figured out who you are supposed to be calling in the first place.


Good things:
- most skippers seem to recognise I'm an experienced pilot and don't look at me as a "2-striper"
- overall very friendly flight deck (usual small percentage of undesirables)
- decent hotels, mostly in city centers
- easy to swap trips, which makes being junior easier than you'd think
- overall, Ops people who treat you as an adult (one of the worse aspects of EZY). When they answer the phone.
- many opportunities to take part in non-flying projects (flight safety, technical, training, corporate relations, etc)

Would I feel the same on SH? Probably not.

I feel much less tired than at EZY. Yes the night flights are tough, but the cumulative fatigue at EZY was much worse. My wife has noticed a big difference in my mood during days off or holidays. But then I sleep well in the bunk, which some people find nigh impossible.

As a family, we've very much enjoyed going on holiday in Club seats in LA, Cape Town and Miami. Also great fun taking the wife on a trip with me and can't wait for my kid to be old enough to do the same.

The vast majority of FOs I know who switched to BA SH say they would never go back. And I don't believe any of the recent 380 DE FOs are having second thoughts.

I think it's very much become a SH vs LH question. There's not a lot between EZY and BA for SH. Just more money sooner at EZY, but that probably evens out over a career. I don't think it would make sense for an EZY skipper to move to BA if he/she has not intention of going LH. Part-time is the only option after 10+ years of SH at either outfit. It's just too knackering.

My two cents!

Congrats! When you say NTR, were you completely NTR? Or current on another Boeing? Cheers! 😊

Flyer2007 don't you read the emails from BA? I know things change with BA all the time, however 3 weeks ago they said, 'The longhaul offers for the moment are being made to those with a current Boeing rating.

Initial forecasting shows that the majority of offers for 2018 will be to the A320 with the majority being based at LGW. While we have a number of you in the holdpool who have an A320 rating, the numbers that are being predicted mean we will need more ROT A320 Pilots than there are of you in the holdpool so we will shortly be launching a new A320 recruit on type campaign.'

It's pretty obvious. As you are probably DHC8 rated, you need to be at the top of the DEP holdpool to have a chance at getting an A320 offer if you're not rated on it. Saab0409 recently mentioned he got an A320 offer and he wasn't A320 rated, and clearly not Boeing rated otherwise he'd have been offered a LH position.

I'm Boeing rating and passed Sept 2016 and I know loads of other Boeing rated pilots who passed after me. I've not received any calls, so it's safe to assume the LH DEP calls for us Boeing swimmers hasn't got into June 2016 yet (based on fr666 passing in May).

People above have said they have (or know people who have) been offered A320 positions based on already being rated and they passed their selection after me.

My worry for you is this part of their email, 'We have some shorthaul offers for those of you that aren’t rated' has already taken place. I believe they'll be able to get more A320 people in during this current drive before you get to the top of 'this' part of the list. Hope I'm wrong for you, but judging by their emails I wouldn't have much hope.

Since when are you king of the hold pool?

BA do change their requirement from time to time so excuse the poor guy for asking.

Massive conclusions jumped to here with little or no information more than anyone else.

Perhaps BA haven’t called because of your outrageous posts on this thread? If by your previous posts BA isn’t for you and you’ve taken another offer then leave the rest of us alone and stop posting on here?

Yeah never said I was king of the hold pool- what does that even mean? Assuming BA haven’t called me because of what I write on here is you assuming something with little or no evidence.

Like it or not- what I wrote is currently fairly accurate to the situation for anyone in the pool who is neither A320 rated or Boeing rated. As that’s what the official message from BA said (and I quoted).

People are always best guessing on here so don’t get your knickers in a twist because I tried to spell out the obvious. I really wonder what type FR666 is currently flying :/

VJW thanks for your reply and apologies if my post came across as uninformed. I have indeed read the emails from BA. Like you say, “for the moment”, hence I was asking the question, as it implies this may change.

I know of someone who is Boeing, but non rated from a June sim and has been offered a LH course, so I trust they’re past May now.

My Dash rating has long expired and indeed in the same boat as you.

As there have been no numbers given regarding LH requirements I felt it was a valid question to get an indication whether they needed more than just Boeing rated for LH. Cheers 😊

Until a new email is sent, we’d all be guessing as to the answer to that. Even if someone wrote on here they were ATR rated and had just been offered A380 at BA doesn’t mean that actually happened. I don’t personally expect a SH offer what so ever and re LH the last email mentions that the majority this year will be SH offers. I take that to mean the LH offers probably won’t get to me in Sept 2016. Hopefully for you, you passed before I did.

While I don’t think we’ve been treated amazingly well, BA to their credit have always kept us up to date and nothing has happened without us being notified first (I refer most recently when they told us A320 DEP was opening again- and it opened that evening). Why they wouldn’t email us before taking non Boeing rated people onto LH just sounds unlikely, because as I said, we’ve always been kept up to date with their plans for 1-2 years already.

I think we've all read the updates from Lucy/BA. If you're anything like me you read, and re-read it trying to glean anything from the bits between the lines.

The 'plan' appears to change as often as the weather, so to come on here and ask for the latest news and rumours, like Flyer2007 did, seems a fair thing to do.

One question though VJW, if you're so anti-BA these days, and have gone elsewhere with the LCC's; why are you so interested?

When have you seen me ask for updates on here? I’ve simply given my opinions at times where I thought I had something to add.

People need to stop implying that people cannot or shouldn’t be interested in any thread on a forum. That’s not how forums or democracy generally work.

I worked as hard as everyone else to pass and can vent frustrations if I want, even after admitting my descision not to join. Just click the ignore button I won’t mind.

Hardly inspiring is it.

Hope is all swimmers have, don’t take that away from people when you know yourself how quickly things can change. Look at the conference call information versus what happened a few weeks later. With a new DFO and a big problem of crewing to solve anything could happen. I know it’s ‘easy’ for you to say with all the opportunities you’ve bragged about on here, but some us of have all our eggs in one basket and don’t need people like you cancelling hope.

Whilst you (quote yourself on here) can’t wait to say no to them on the phone spare a though for the people who need to say yes.

Yeah it’s not my fault. I don’t need to come on here to be inspiring. I have a state of mind based purely on emails received by BA for 18 months.

I spare a thought for all of us, we shouldn’t have to through all of that process to not be called. From reading the most recent email, there are going to be some in the pool who won’t get a call. I’ve said a number of times of course I’m aware things can easily change, but doesn’t anyone else get that impression at the moment?

Again I can give my opinion, you don’t have to take any notice, but my opinion is what it is. I didn’t have much hope when they first emailed us saying no jobs expected in 2018 so I went and got myself ONE other option and am in the process of taking it as I still don’t think BA will call me. There are better jobs out there than where I am currently and I have hedged my bets in looking after my family long term.

I’ve only ever made comments on what I think- this is what a forum is for.

..

Welcome (possibly) to BA and the “BA way” ....the emphasised bit is why I tried to stop offering anything approximating advice a few months back.......

Wonder what the latest “anything can happen” will be”...just seen the latest LHR TAF and the usual missive that arrived at about the same time about “ minding how you go” on the way to work...but make sure you get here....but make sure you don’t bust 90 minutes.......;)

Seriously, hope it all works out for the swimmers...now where did I put the uniform pullover :confused: oh hang on, we have a heavy...:E

Belated edit to add. With regard to some of the glowing endorsements about rostering - having had to time to spare this evening I have been browsing elsewhere and noticed there is suddenly a lot of heated traffic on company yammer about how bad roster stability actually is for the v junior on some fleets...I think the gripe is whilst Blindlines and Triplines are solid there are new joiners experiencing a high frequency of reserve lines vs. what was promised by the recruiting team (specifically recruiting team saying about one a year, people actually working four in a year), high incidence of TASS, etc, and other complaints.. .any of the newish joiners here care to comment?

Wiggy, any idea what the latest chatter is for those of us non-type rated, and currently enjoying time on aircraft more "exotic" than the usual line up or Airbus and Boeing?

Likely connected to the increasing numbers of pilots who are no longer able to be assigned Reserve!

Combined with the ludicrous Reserve Banding system!

"No longer able to be assigned reserve". Would you mind explaining that please? Reserve is currently one of the least attractive prospects for me as a long haul hold pool swimmer. I would go almost as far as to say it could make the difference between me accepting an offer or not. That being said, not being in the company I probably don't fully understand the system. Some of my junior friends seem to do a lot of reserve and I don't fancy 4 21 day periods a year for the next 10 years where I have so little advance notice of what I am working.

Certainly on LH, under current rules, Right to Request part timers can never do Reserve, even if they want to! Under current rules Aspirational part time workers will hardly ever do Reserve either. Both the of these situations are due to the fact that you need a 28 day ‘window’ of availability on your line of work to fit a Reserve block in. RTR never have such a window. With leave and DFW, Aspirational bidders hardly ever have ‘availability’ either.

Combined with the unjustifiable system of Reserve Banding. On LH in particular, with the increasing uptake of PTWK, it can’t be long before we see every junior full time worker doing Reserve pretty much whenever they have a 28 day window? (Though I’ve a vague recollection you can’t be assigned Reserve in consecutive months??)

On HSB, you have to reach the crew car park in 2 hours, so if you live close to Heathrow, it might suit you? If you’re planning to commute, it certainly won’t. You will also lose control of any earned allowances. You may be busy. You may not work at all.

On the up side, it generally, though not always, starts with a 7 day block off.

Enjoy!

Oh, and of course, a few have to be on Reserve over Xmas and New Year! Much less popular even than being assigned a trip. At least with a trip, six weeks out, you can make family plans etc! I did notice on my fleet, there were a surprisingly high number of pilots who felt too ill to work Xmas Day!

Which is a bit of a shame!

Sorry, no idea but one of the better informed might be able to help out.

As for the questions/comments about vulnerability to reserve, it is as 4468 describes: the various part time contracts have removed eligibility/vulnerability for a lot of people and as a consequence has increased the loading on the full timers...yes, it is certainly possible to be awarded or assigned a Long Haul reserve block (28days) as an aspirational part timer, especially if you are on 72%, but it doesn’t happen that often for those on the 58% deal. One partial solution might have been shorter reserve blocks and I thought there was some talk of that being introduced along with JSS but that hasn’t materialised.

Are you ‘certain’ about that?

RTR part timers definitely do Reserve. It’s all in BLRs. There is a form to bid for dates otherwise you can be assigned. HTH

But what you described are exactly why joining as a direct entry pilot onto a longhaul fleet is not the be-all.

Joining as a DEP LH you are joining on a much more senior fleet where everyone joining the fleet, apart from a few new entry pilots recruited after you onto the fleet, will be more senior then yourself. Even pilots moving from SH to LH will be more senior then yourself. Blindlines, or under jss getting maximum optimalisation, are all you will be doing for up to 5 years (unless significant amounts of new recruits join behind you on the fleet).

On SH as a new entrent you should be able to climb the fleet seniority list by around 15 to 20% a year were as on LH as a new entrant because of the above you will be hovering at the bottom for the best part of the first 5 years. That is the beauty of a seniority based system were it doesn’t really matter if new pilots go directly onto LH bypassing SH. Once that SH pilot moves to LH (s)he will get the higher roster satisfaction.
(Before flying hours are mentioned as a right to bypass SH. On my SH joiners course the least experienced pilot had 3000 hours)

Also the SH pilots moving to LH will have done around 5 years in the company and thus get more points for a reserve period then yourself. Joining the fleet, you start with the fleet average reserve points, but will have to do more often a reserve period then the pilots 5 years and 10 years in the company. On SH you will find just a few pilots longer in the company then 5/10 years so most are in the same band resulting in having to do less reserves then the new entry LH pilot. One might argue this banding system is not fair but most join on SH and will have done a fair few reserve periods on SH which are much harder then a LH reserve.

Holiday and Xmas are based on a point system and are the same for SH and LH. You start off with 0 so run a fair chance of not getting your first 2 Xmasses off, after which you should be able to. Holidays are the same. If you take a peak week summer school holiday as your week off you get less points then a for a week in the middle of November. The more points you have the more likely you will get the holiday over a periond you bit for.

Hey, what's with all this fretting about silly little aspects of your job when you're blind to the looming threat of job displacement through Artifical Intelligence. Just enjoy flying planes to earn a salary. Whilst you still can. FFS, stop bitching like a load of spoilt pansies and wake up! The world 'out there' is far more interesting and good fun.

Thank you for the valuable contribution to this thread. Amazing insight and right on subject. Think you maybe looking for the Daily Mail.

They can change quickly, however VJW is correct in saying that things may not turn out well. They haven’t on a number of occasions. I’m not sure what BA recruitment do regarding hold pool extension periods (went from 12 to 18 months when I was swimming back in 2012) however when it was over it was over. Reapply and start again was the only option. BA will never have a shortage in applicants, the fossett never seems to dry up.

Regardless, always best to have a plan B in aviation.

If they do let everyone in the hold pool drown, what an absolute waste of time and money that will have been.

I’m hoping that with their current focus on costs they will recognise that expiring the hold pool would be squandering all the money spent on interviews/sims.

Maybe, however at the time when I was in the pool a very senior BA Captain explained something to me. He agreed that waving goodbye to a pool of experienced pilots, who were in continued flying practice and whom had considerable time & money invested in their recruitment, was indeed criminal. However, according to him, if this had been the 'done thing' in BA since the dawn of time then it could be a very difficult process to change, especially if the people who were in support of it were any way influential (leading members of HR! ;) )

However, back in 2012/13, circumstances were quite different. IAG were to purchase bmi and as a result they would be required to integrate a massive number of pilots onto the BA list. PP24 would also no longer be available, something that was on the cards when I entered the pool! Additionally, the first batch of the FPP lads and ladies would filter through and would take priority (could you imagine the PR disaster if they didn't get flying jobs!). Towards the end of my tenure in the pool, the forecast for any further DEP recruitment was bleak. Little did anyone know that in under 12 months it would skyrocket to beyond anything that the airline had ever encountered. Funny place aviation. Luckily my plan B came to fruition around this time and I haven't looked back. Still, in hindsight, it was nice to have a go at the DEP assessments and be successful (well, sort of successful).

All other operators I have encountered require a repeat of the assessment if more than 12 months has elapsed without starting employment.

BA considering outsourcing training.Bad idea.DFO resigned over this.

Rumour. Correct. Rumour.

I have to say I'm becoming highly sceptical of who is writing some of these replies. FR Management possibly to stem to the outflow of pilots and attract newcomers?.. Nothing surprises me! It crosses my mind as some of the comments are not balanced and very anti BA, suggesting FR maybe better.

Madness and very worrying! Whilst I can't comment on Easy and whether people maybe happy to stay there, the only thing I can say is 4 sector days are not enjoyable and the lack of variety in the job over a lifetime would surely become dull for most.

I can comment on FR and stress it is not a nice place to work for many many reasons. Firstly the money is only better if you are based in the UK or Ireland on a fr contract(Captain). Anywhere else in Europe it's not. Tax situation is messy and its pointless comparing pay to contractor guys as they are most probably avoiding paying tax for the most part which is a risky and stressful game.

Ive witnessed HMRC chasing guys down in crew rooms and heard of police involvement around Europe. Not knowing if you will have your home repossesed if you ever get caught out is not a way to live and guys talk about running off to the Middle East if it ever came to it to avoid prosecution.

Personally I didn't get involved in any of that as its not worth the stress. So money aside whats its like. Everyone is miserable. I don't know many people who enjoy going to work. 4 sector days plus are hell and doing that 5 days in a row with minimum rest will probably put guys in an early grave. The guys doing it a long time In there 50's look exhausted and have an emptiness in their eyes.

Being based in London Stansted is a miserable. Crap facilities (most in the network becoming portacabin's) , no one smiles, you look like a janitor wearing the ridiculous blue company coat, people don't like you because you work for fr, no pride in the job, lack of respect from most people. No pay for standbys, no pay for anything outside of block hours so delays you work for free ( there are a lot of delays!), no food or drinks even when you have been working for free for 8 hours sat at the gate. Constantly being disturbed during rest periods to do favours and change duties.

Management have little respect for you and are always on the offensive. People are being called to head office to explain being sick for as little as 3/4 days in the year and given formal warnings and threatened that they will be dismissed if they call in sick again. If you have a few minutes delay for very legitimate reasons then expect to be called up by management who will blame you and give you a warning. Such a joy operating for them.

Also If guys are getting paid more than BA, remember that FR pilots are working their absolute max hours in the conditions mentioned. Money certainly isn't everything and especially if its only marginally more, having to put up with so much. Hotels are truly dreadful with no transfers arranged a lot of the time(wait months to be paid back for expenses).

I could go on and on with endless examples. Everything I've mentioned is 100% true with no exaggeration. The proof is in the pudding. Masses are leaving FR and more than 80% of guys I talk to are applying to leave. Anyone defending it, defend the statistics as they speak for themselves.

A bit harsh I feel. He/she only saying it as he/she sees it. And actually if you do withdraw the likelihood increases.