Well I guess in fairness roster stability might be improved, that is a common claim, but “control”??? Even if control (define) was good relative to the purple lot that’s all moot looking ahead not that far into the future....

Anyway folks, on that subject don’t forget, last ever BA Bidline Stage One bid due out tomorrow

Agreed, BA are going to have to manage this very, very carefully indeed because, once word gets out about how brutal the rosters are at the bottom end of the P2 List on Long Haul (and word will get out), the company will have a recruitment crisis. No one in their right mind is going to want to join to be fatigued senseless flying 6 low credit trips with two days off between each every month. We’ve seen how emirates has a recruitment crisis partly because of the fatigue and how word has spread like wildfire about how dreadful it is out there. Make no mistake, it’s BA’s turn next and I’m not overdramatising this. The junior rosters (and therefore the quality of life) on Long Haul, if it’s anything like the JSS run going forward, are going to be absolutely frickin’ horrendous.

didn’t get to do one

i appreictae JSS may change things too but even with the worse, I feel much less fatigued than previous outfit.

I guess my requirements are a lot less, my home life felxibile so my JSS commands will be short.

Didnt mean to start a war , but from coming from somewhere where the workload was high and control was low, just trying to point out that I’m glad I made the move, and it’s not all doom and gloom. My initial post maybe should of come with a warning that this post contains something positive, alert the managers. Anyone looking to come to BA from a similar background I’d reccomend coming. After all this is a BA recruitment forum, not a winging about BA forum.

Im happy to be in a better place, but I’m sure you’ll all try and convince me otherwise

Plenty more people will join from Purple Airways.They are a quality product and their CX is a problem.

Perhaps so, does that mean now I have a little perspective, that others may have lost?

Regarding blind line, that totally suited me. Swapped most of it to get things to work for me. Also a seeded blind line worked for me too. Whilst I realise I’ll never be in Cape Town every Monday to Friday I’m happy with what I get. Money’s good for working extra hard and I’ve had much more useful time at home.

Having a preference is a new thing to me, and most others from a previous airline. By not having a choice (blind line, fallback, max trips) it’s no different to what I’ve come from. But instead there’s a warm meal in front of me and a bit of job security. It ain’t all bad folks!

Efarto the point is seeded blind lines are gone. Forever. Say hello to Kuwait, Lagos, Abuja, Riyadh etc every single month. You’ve swapped duties? Show me an airline that doesn’t allow you to do that. I know for a fact we could at Flybe, I was there too. I’m not trying to rub it in but life is about to get really, really s*** for junior people. That absolutely is relevant information for recruitment going forward and a BA recruitment thread.

Agree with many of above. Suspect like many of us I’ve kept my mouth stchtumb on this thread re further gen whilst we still digest the results. I, like others joined the firm to be told bidline that was trumpeted about so much during the Q and A was going. Well that was a nice start...

Others still have a choice. I think this is serious, and folk shouldn’t under estimate how this may feature on their wish list. Whilst we have to be accurate and empathise with new guys, all we have seen are practices with the system - but, we are all making educated perceptions of it (emphasis on that bit). It would be false if we gave outside folk the idea this will definately all blow over and amount to just a minor change.

I’ve flown LH elsewhere and, also at the small regional airline mentioned above (a while ago now). Can only say people must have worked in some really !!!! places if they think those dry run LH rosters look ok. Either that or they’re new to LH and have never flown anything other than BLR rosters.

LH tends to get people after some years. I’ve had benefit (?) of some LH rosters that featured reversals like those on the dry run. They will total you over years. Fecking awful.

I’m looking to exit stage left. Seems to be a case of “too late now”. It won’t get over turned. Thoroughly regret joining and actually quite annoyed about it all. I joined this outfit having just left one firm where the senior Gods sold the juniors down the river.

Anyone thinking of joining look yourself in the mirror and say the words lifestyle and health. Ask how important they are to you and your family. Basically right now, anyone who tells you they KNOW are misleading - they’re working off old and outdated info (bidline is dead). All of us, right now are essentially estimating. It comes down to how safe are these estimates. Read between the lines in the above posts is all I’d say. Suffice the evidence is pointing that these are the two things you MAY WELL give up.

Lifestyle & health.


HEALTH WARNING - NON OF US HAVE FLOWN ONE OF THESE NEW ROSTERS YET.

True re swapping, but with so many hoops to jump through and rules to adhere too, its so much easier here.

Kuwait is swappable Free dry cleaning and breakfast can’t be that bad. Folk love Lagos for the lack of nights rest needed and I’m sure Abujah is just lovely this time of year. Sure beats a 6 sector day.

That at aside if I wanted to travel the amazing popular palaces I’d of applied to mixed fleet not DEP. Still happy to fly an amazing machine with mostly great people. Why does it all have to be bad?

I’m so sick of new joiners coming in and telling us how wonderful it all is , it has changed since I have been here AND it will change agin !! I am fatigued constantly and I can’t wait for my lifestyle to be f#cked under the new roster system

perhaps, but my original post was to point out that it’s better than some people’s previous airline.

Over and out.

Wireless has made some of the most consistently brilliant posts I’ve ever read on this forum over the last couple of weeks or so and he has completely nailed it again with his last post.

Hi Efarto.

Sorry to chime into your reply. You make some points that are very good to respond to. If you don’t mind me asking, you sound quite new to LH?

The problem is...some things are just not tradeable commodities. And selling ourselves as such under a Faustian bargain is terribly misguided however well meant in eagerness to display positivity. Its like catnip to business owners. We really shouldn’t help them line our early boxes. Between them and the regulators they already think Pilots cry wolf about lifestyle and stress and can be bought out by a new jumbo, a few dollars and a half baked FTL scheme. Non of us are Egyptian Faroes. We can’t take that stuff with us.

New equipment, nice destinations. All tend to be currency amongst people very new to LH. It’s no accident they rarely feature in the dailies of folk doing it a few years. Is that any coincidence? Ask why. It is no accident.

I’d venture further, if their personal life, and health balance is safe, then those of course can be a source of side pleasure. But they are not trade-able, and in many of us those little extras become eclipsed very quickly by more pressing issues.

Just to show there’s always an exception that proves the rule etc...

On my second most recent mixed fleet trip whilst passing the time in idle chit chat (“what did you do before BA....”) we discovered that our forward galley team’s qualifications were as follows:

One M. Phil Mathematics (Oxbridge) then the City.........
One B.Sc Maths
One B.Sc Economics (which according to her made her “the thick one” out of the three.......)

The argument that because a third of people didn’t bid we can expect the land of milk and honey in comparison when everyone gets involved is completely bogus and I don’t know where that understanding has come from. The work has still been allocated around all pilots, the junior guys aren’t picking up the remainder of the work amongst them whilst that segment of the workforce has been given the month off. There isn’t a great deal to be positive about to be honest and, if anything, everyone piling in is only going to make matters worse for the junior bods as the seniority gradient will become steeper.

As you rightly say the non bidders were rostered (? Fallback) so the bidders didn’t get loaded up artificially, though the trips the non bidders got and spacing thereof might have been sub optimal (in their eyes) to some extent.

I suspect for the first few months those who have got their heads round the system will do well and some of the junior pilots will I’m sure profit from the ignorance of some above....however I reckon by Easter or not long most of us (even me) will have grasped enough of the basics to make i decent stab at a bid and that’s when we’ll be seeing how JSS vs, seniority really shakes out.

In 17 rolling days I have worked 14........no wonder my friends in the LOCO’s won’t even consider BA when they know the reality of our rostering

efarto

I always find it entertaining when people swap from short haul to long haul and tell me how easy long haul is, be that from within the company or as a DEP. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; 99% of fresh long haulers feel like you. They recover almost overnight from the extreme tiredness they felt on short haul, and they enjoy having a bit of time off down route and visiting the new destinations. They hardly even notice the time changes and the nights out of bed because they are not long term fatigued and they never have been. We have all been there!

A couple of years of long haul punishment under JSS and I guarantee you will change your tune.

Nah don’t worry I didn’t take it as a dig at all...:ok: .Funny thing about mixed Fleet is you get extremes...lots obviously aren’t that long out of school (I gather our first lot with d.o.b’s of 2000 are on line.. g** I feel old.....ooh, that’s cos I am:sad: ) OTOH it has given the opportunity for some who have had long careers in completely different fields to basically take a career break and travel the world for a year or two...it can make for some interesting conversations..

...and yes, I completely agree with your point about Longhaul and how the fatigue builds.

FACoff: that’s SH....

I would say if you join , do so with your eyes wide open !!
It is still a good company to work for , BUT it is going down hill rapidly !
The light at the end of the tunnel was always the LH life ! But that has long gone

well as the old saying goes “ each to their own” , I have been in for 6 years . Been on the 787 for 2 , at first it was like a Valhalla compared to SH (like many of our colleagues from Flybe are feeling) but it’s starting to take its toll on me and my family , I am unhappy and tired most of the time (could be because I’m a grumpy ba@tard) . The new roster system is terrifying me I can’t imagine doing more work , but I’m sure there is a way !

For balance, my November roster is awesome. It is the fiirst time I have had a ‘normal’ workload roster all year mind.

To all who want to join, keep a close eye on this thread over the next few months. It will be extremely telling.

If if things go as I expect, these are my predictions. Call it an educated guess.

Practically no-one will leave a command anywhere else to go to BA in either SH or LH.

No FO from the usual suspects will even entertain joining BA short haul (future “cadets”, your time may have come).

No FO from the usual suspects aged much over 30 will want to come to longhaul as the junior lifestyle will not be compatible with young family life (not sure it is currently either to be fair).

There will always be exceptions, I appreciate that. My bet is most of those exceptions will have become fed up with opening the curtains in the morning and seeing beige. They’ll be the ones who’ve made their money.

I think BA’s day of reckoning is close.

I would leave it a couple of months after Jan though, as I think there will be more than a few disgruntled pilots upset with their rosters in the first few months of JSS bidding until we learn how the system works. Once things bed down and the union tweaks a few parameters as necessary, we will know whether BA will be seen as a long term gig or not.

Yep, Easter will have given people four bids under JSS, most will be some way up the learning curve and an overall picture of senority vs. rosters will be emerging.

It is only then that we will have a handle on how much control the new system makes it possible for individuals to really have vs. how many are going to be on blindlines in all but name due to the consequences of Global Constraints/crew repair and the unlocking of rosters.

TBH I’m sceptical as to how much significant tweaking BALPA will be able to do once JSS is in place, so it’s a case of fingers crossed.