For duties starting prior to a 10am, yes I do actually. I live 100miles away and know what the UK motorway system can be like. Each to their own, but if you are going for a job interview for pilot with BA, I simply cannot believe you wouldn’t factor in such details like making sure you get there on time, and without being subjected to unnecessary stress.

I’m sure there’s an answer to that..:oh:

3 greens

You won’t be living 100 miles away for very long if the rumours are true about the CAA puting a stop to any commute that is not 90 mins or less on AA route finder

Rumour is they are in BA now looking at this ?

They are not going to stop people living more than 100 miles from LHR.....

For those not in the loop the fact is there is a current audit of “flying commuters”. In the run up to that audit management described what they and the CAA regard as sensible commutes, (both flying and drive) and from what they describe it will certainly be possible to live more than 100 miles away and fly in or drive in provided you make arrangements to ensure you are rested at report.

That generally seems to be not flying in overnight and as for a driver.. well they probably would throw the book at somebody if they found out they left home at e.g 2 AM to drive in for an early report......

At the end of the day no matter there’s plenty of accommodation around LHR for pre-flight (or pre-interview) rest. Nobody is going to have to live in the Home Counties or Greater London.

Several hotels around LHR offer discounted aircrew rates. All subject to availability, but work on around £40 per night for the likes of the Ibis & Premier Inn. Privately owned B&Bs can be considerably cheaper.

I have found, coming from the other end of the country, that commuting costs (around 4 trips per month and the odd night in a hotel) are no more than what I used to spend on fuel, driving round the M25 five times a week.

Wot SXTY said...

Some of the perimeter hotels offer crew rates, that may or may not beat the public rate, so caveat emptor, and there are a fair number of crew only B&Bs with bus/walking distance. Somewhere between £25 and £60ish a night would be a fair guess.

The impact in days off is a bit trickier, though not so bad if you are part time and/or long haul.

Imagine if they actually enforced a 90min rule....BA would be cancelling an awful lot of flights for the foreseeable.

Which would cost the company an awful lot of money, which is why the whole audit process is simply to stop the piss taking commuting habits of a minority of crew, no more no less. The CAA will never impose something that severely damages the finances of one of its biggest cash cows. If it does, I’m buying shares in the Premier Inn group.

In other news, great to see some new DEP folks appearing on the seniority list of the long haul fleets - the chap at the bottom of my status list can finally give his shoulders a rest!

Not that the tone of your post deserves a reply, but BA closed my original base 20 years ago.
If you want the job that badly then to my mind you need to assume the m25 could be snarled up. If you have a different attitude to risk then fair enough.

Recollect, long time ago, a guy sleeping in a VW camper at GLA.

Top floor of the LHR car park was my second home for a few years.

And offered you a generous financial package to relocate, I presume?

The rumour is that BA are ‘after’ a few serial offenders, who think it perfectly acceptable to pax 8-12 hours overnight. (Potentially in economy) Then expect to operate after a little time in the CRC!

They then have a habit of sleeping through much of their operating sector!

From what I’ve heard. BA have a point!

Oh, yes, my dear, I've a penthouse suite in London :E

I wondered who that was!

Sim assessments being offered to 320 rated

My penthouse in Vauxhall Towers, combined with my southern drawl, kept me knee deep in clunge for ages, brother, :}

Sadly, the penthouse got towed away so I’ve got to rely solely on my looks, charm and wit now.

Buter

Any updates?
 

Have there been anymore calls made to the hold pool for 320 TR'd?

The last word I heard was from 'thetimesreader84' that they had an early Dec sim date and had been given a start in May.

Any other 320 TR'd people still treading the water?

Thanks

Surely it's just a matter of time for everybody in the pool, on the basis that they're putting people through fresh assessments for A320 positions?

Good news! Lindsay Craig is back at the helm.

Andre as well? Decent guys who actually care about flying, good news.

Not sure about Andre or Andy but hopefully good news for swimmers and future DEPs/cadets. Rumours of being many hundreds short on the pilot front.

What about the 5 years fleet freeze engagement is it still there or has been removed? If so would you foresee any possible early movement out of the 747 fleet as they are due to retire?

Where do questions of removal of engagement freeze come from? The engagement freeze has been five years for at least two decades. I cannot see that reducing. If anything, I expect they would like to see it increase.

As for 747 retirements; yes hull numbers have been reducing, but we are years away from people being directed off or released from freezes. In fact at the moment, they cannot get people trained onto it quickly enough!

Are you saying you have been offered a 747 course but you do not really want it?

+1...every course is a cost to the company.....

Looks like BA are going to be short of flight crew this summer. This was hinted at a while ago but looks like it’s going to result in extraordinary measures😗

Getting new recruits in is harder when your existing crews are being run ragged just keeping the show on the road....

Although we clearly have a stressful summer ahead, I think this is great news for potential DEPs and existing BA pilots generally. Glass half full and all that :ok:

It's also very reassuring to have L.C back in control of Manpower Planning.

It is great news of potential DEP recruitment, but I really hope LC doesn’t let a whole lot of good potential pilots go for not holding a moving cross or not playing silly cruise ship games, still like in previous recruitment drive, I know its is their train set, but surely the large drive for DEP long haul recruitment and roadshows a few years back in a few Gulf States and Hong Kong for experienced long haul pilot but turning them down must have the cost the company so much money.

I really hope LC can respectfully modernise BA’s recruitment.

Modernize indeed. The first step towards fixing any recruitment issue within a company is to get board approval to totally bypass HR and their involvement. HR are a burden and curse on a department's operational needs. I've seen it in multiple industries prior to aviation. Why does a granny from HR who is about to retire think she knows what makes a good BA employee in 2018? Cut out the bull!!!! and archaic paper based exercises that reveal nothing about experienced pilots that a proper 1 hr chat on a pilot to pilot basis covering background and future desires can't.

Limit the intolerable and most off-putting "describe a situation when..." questions to 2 or 3, not 10! That just pisses adults right off. Some of us are left thinking, what is this nonsense?

Most of us walk away from the BA process feeling deeply annoyed and as if we just interviewed for a high profile city banker's job. In my case bailed out at 2nd stage after an hours worth of pointless questions and during the interview not one operational or tech question was asked. I'm a pilot ffs, treat and test me like one!

Sour grapes? Well yes. When you keep seeing pilots well known to have inferior skills getting hired by BA, it does turn your world a bit sour. I'm sure a lot of people in this room will back me up on this last part.

Apparently some offers have been made this week, can anyone elaborate?

I’n sure the likes of LC would happily cut to the chase....

I’m with you on this, however above LC s pay grade I suspect we have people who think being able to keep the dot centred and use the three times table isn’t enough...BA also want a “package” that is capable and willing to drop everything in the middle of a foreign vacation to go to an local airport airport to operate back to U.K. in the stead of a sick colleague, and during the flight take an image of their crew meal which they will portray in an attractive manner on Social media...now convince at interview that you can tick those boxes and you will be BAs ideal modern pilot recruit....

I'm all for modern thinking Wiggy, but having seen some social media attempts blow up recently that's a path that needs to be walked very very carefully.

Also a sorry state of affairs if skill of the selfie is considered ahead of other ability.

Amen to that smooth. Is a long while since I visited BA, but they always were a nauseating extreme of the HR psychobabble driven selection process, which some might argue, selectively recruits candidates with a rather inflated opinion of themselves!

Wiggy: I hope they are only taking pictures of their meal above 20,000ft

Thanks for the heads up but it is really not necessary. Anyone who has been at BA for any length of time is well aware of that fact, cf. Mixed Fleet and Social Media.....

It's not...I'm not suggesting for one minute that BA think selfie skills /media skills etc have primacy over flying skills,..that comment was made slightly in jest in view of recent events, but it might be worth having a view on the subject if brought up at interview. The "real politik" here (and you are smart people, you must know this) is that most big companies with a large pool of applicants look beyond the hand eye stuff these days and rocking up for interview with a mature flight bag and approaching the process with the attitude of "I'm an ace pilot with X000 hours in the book, don't need to prove anything else, just employee me"...might not work out too well.

bex:

:ok:

I am pretty out of touch with the current BA application process, but they must be doing something right because I have been very impressed with the many DEPs I have flown with on the 747. Two ringers often seem to think they are viewed as inferior, but whenever I have one on my flight, I tend to think the exact opposite.

https://www.pprune.org/members/95137...8ee808c1b.jpeg

Wiggy.

Re Flight Deck selfies.This would be good recruitment PR.
A mates afternoon tea, crew meal on his first route sector with VS after 16 years of RAF crew food!!!

His favourite Tristar meal, Chicken Tikka Lasagna!

Are you sure that’s s crew meal? A left over from Upper Class, I suspect.

Correct, but often gets the left over Upper Class. Still better than an Ascot tray!!

Lovely insult to approx 4000 commercial pilots! What's your beef?

Heard a figure of approx 60 sim assessments to be done asap, that was from one of the assessors.

Interesting. Who are these pilots “well known to have inferior skills” of whom you speak? Please enlighten us.

Current tests used for BA Direct Entry current assessment (day 1)
 

Hi guys,

Everyone kind enough to share information about the tests used for the ongoing BA Direct Entry day 1 assessment?

On top of the verbal and numerical tests, is there only one capacity test or 2?
I read some confusion on the latestpilotjobs website about that.

As far as I understand there should be only the multitask test (with the TCAS, systems and RODs...).

Anyone to confirm that there is none of the tests previously used which involved a joystick (FD, shape test, FD + 2 things)?

In advance, thanks for your light!