Same old same old, junior pilots moaning about their lot. Life isn't fair get over it. if you want weekends off and want your career to progress based on something other than a number then work in an office or something.

Very interesting reading indeed. Wiggy as ever presents a very balanced and fair argument.

Chaps and chapesses - it's simple. If you don't think something is 'fair' then try and change it. If you can't change it, change your expectations. I joined BA in full knowledge of the conditions and never considered it unfair. It's just the way it is. I didn't like a number of things but never was it 'unfair' - so I left and have no regrets or complaints whatsoever. BA is a business and is doing its best to perform strongly in a challenging competitive environment and I wish it all the very best.

No one is forced to join BA or indeed forced to stay if unhappy. Complaining things are unfair is somewhat naive I feel. It's a seniority based system and you have to take the rough with the smooth if you're junior!

What a delight you must be to fly with! :hmm:

He has a point though.

No he doesn't.

And to be summed up in such a way shows a very clear lack of understanding of what's going on at the bottom. This isn't a bunch of children whinging about their pocket money. It's real guys and girls with real families trying to make it work. I don't wish to sound melodramatic but some people really don't get it and "I'm alright jack" isn't a pleasant way to go through life.

Just about sums up what's wrong with the pilot profession really. Progression based purely on numbers, no chance to move on because you're trapped by "seniority", those at the top who are alright, Jack. What a bizarre and depressing industry this really is.

You do realise you're not the first generation of "guys and girls with real families" to have gone through this (regardless of whether "this" is right or wrong), so please do at least credit some of us with the ability to understand " what's going on at the bottom" ...

Out of interest and for the sake of debate, since a lot of this recent argument has been about weekends can I ask what ratio of "weekends worked" to "weekends not worked" over a year would you find acceptable?

( By "weekend not worked" I mean neither the Saturday or the Sunday containing any duty period or element thereof)

Absolutely I understand that struggling at the bottom is nothing especially new. However, I would argue that the decline in T's and C's in recent times has been sharper than ever and has meant that the current struggle is somewhat different to previous times.

I'm not referring to weekends off in my comments. Being a junior chap myself, I joined BA whole heartedly accepting that for the first few years working weekends, zero or very little roster control and working xmas was the norm. Anyone walking into such a large and complex seniority system has to either make peace with this concept or spend their first few years miserable trying to fight something they can't change. That being the case, I work the vast majority of weekends and personally don't have a big issue with it because I accept my place in the system. Sadly, the other recent changes have made life at the bottom tougher than ever both financially and lifestyle wise. Reserve every other month is not much fun I can tell you!

Fair point.

I think financially some of the recent changes, not just the PP change, but the agreement back step on variable pay wasn't the cleverest move ever made and I don't have a solution to that.

As for lifestyle, I think there are issues other than senority that have worked against folk here ( dare I risk mentioning EASA in shorthaul?) certainly the demand for Part Time Working (PTW) would perhaps indicate that rostering is not a bed of roses, even at quite senior level. I found PTWing was the only way I got reasonable element of control back for at least some of the time, but I can understand why for financial reasons that is not an option for the more junior.

I find it interesting to read that most of the posters arguing about the suposingly unfairness of the seniority system in the previous posts are direct entry pilots who joined straight onto longhaul.

I would argue the seniority system would be the only fair system to allow pilots to be recruited directly onto Longhaul without disadvantaging the shorthaul pilots who would love to go longhaul but who are still in their engagement freeze. With the current system an unfrozen shorthaul pilot who has done the 5 years of hard labour and who gets released onto longhaul would be more senior to anybody who joined after him directly onto his/her new longhaul fleet resulting in a higher roster satisfaction.

The above posters complaining about the unfairness of the seniority factor in the current rostering system could have joined Shorthaul and would have been around 30% fleet seniority within 3 years of joining. (And before there is the feeling of entitlement of going direct entry longhaul because you make the hour requirements to go LH, on my SH joining course a few years back the most inexperienced pilot had twice the minimum hour requirement to go direct entry longhaul)

Please don't confuse the issue by coming up with examples of situations in BA where seniority doesn't determine absolutely everything....;)

I was at the bottom for 5 years joining after 9/11 mate, so I know what life is like down there, did I moan about working every weekend or wonder why the guy next to me was about to take 100k pa pension? Or the general unfaireness of seniority? No. prob because I have stacked shelves before and loaded pallets in a stinking hot factory and seen life outside the BA bubble. A lot of new guys not all have had an easy life before flying and are used to getting what they want including bank of daddy giving them 100k to go get a job. That's what is really wrong with this profession. It's like those pay as you go formula one drivers, driving conditions down for the rest.
Stop acting like my kids when they don't get what they want.

Just realised I posted this on a Saturday while at home! How insensitive of me.

I imangine your pension dulls the pain of having to "suffer" at the bottom, as did your P24 scale. We and the whole profession were sold down the river by you guys and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. Your right this argument has been raging for generations but we are perhaps the first that don't feel like we have much to work for! I will never see top scale and my pension at best will a fraction of the NAPS. And all this to do the same job in a more expensive world, you must see why it's frustrating.

Yes I do see why it's frustrating but have to ask - by "you" in the above statement do you mean every single pilot at BA at the time who had a vote on the matter, or just those who negotiated the proposal that was put to the vote and those that voted for it?...

Shouldn't ones discontent be directed towards the union and your colleagues who represent it?

If you feel you have been 'sold down the river' by your senior peers, then consider who provided the boat for this to happen?

BTW - I am not in BA before anyone asks.

Hi all,

My 2 penneth for what it's worth.

I have now been in BA for just over 5 years and I am now on a long haul only fleet about 25% up from the bottom on my seniority list. The first couple of years with reserve were hard but you have to play the system the best you can.

I.e. Bid for a reserve block over a monthly boundary ( Jan into early Feb) you then get March off then bid late Apr into May etc. This way you will only do 4 reserves a year but you will also get 4 extra weeks off as well as the standard 6 weeks everyone else gets. Strategic bidding for your leave and duty free weeks may also mean several months free of reserve.

Also bid for reserve over Christmas thereby getting reserve points and Christmas points together with little chance of actually working Christmas Day.

I am now in trip line territory but usually only get something between my 20th and 30th choice. I try and get some weekends off and usually get about 50%, however this might be a Sat off one week and a Sun off the next. Of the 50% that I do work some of them will usually be an early finish on the Sat morning or a late/evening start on the Sun.

What I do enjoy though is some weekdays off to go to school plays, sports days, open evenings and take my son to swimming and help at his scouts etc which I couldn't do in a Monday to Friday 9-5 job.

Are there some crap bits? Yes certainly. BARP isn't great but a lot better than I got with Jet 2. I will never get to the top of pay point 34 even working to 65 but then I wouldn't have got to pay point 24 when you had to retire at 55. I am however getting paid a lot more than I ever did in the RAF with no chance of being send to PSAB or Bastion.

Swapping is very flexible so if you can't get a weekend off take your family with you. I recently did a sector swap to extend a Japan trip over half term so took my family to Tokyo and did the sights and Disney Sea for about £600. On short haul took the family on city breaks to Edinburgh and Athens etc.

BA is what it is and it is unlikely to change much for the better. I am enjoying it by taking full advantage of what is available. If you really hate it you need to move on. You're born and then you die, you need to enjoy the bit in the middle or what's the point,

Regards

Go back to Ryanair then.

The comments made by some of the newer BA pilots on here are pretty good examples of the younger generation today I think. It is a generation of the "I not only want it all now, but I deserve it and am entitled to it!" You seem to think you have somehow been sold down the river by the more senior pilots. Are you talking about pensions? Have you heard of APS? Most of the more senior pilots in BA are merely on NAPS. Presumably they got sold down the river by their more senior colleagues at some point? Yet for you guys this is something new that is just happening to you? Have you ever heard of guys doing just 500 hours flying a year? The senior guys aren't doing that now. (In fact they are likely doing considerably more than you if you are doing reserve every other month). But they never got sold down the river - it is just you guys joining now. You really do sound like teenagers who believe that their parents were never teenagers and just don't know what it is like. I recommend you try reflecting on the career you have, and how lucky you are to have it. Imagine being Mixed Fleet cabin crew as opposed to their WW or Eurofleet colleagues! You're so lucky to have the terms and conditions you currently have, and I guarantee they will be half what they are now by the time you retire.

Yes, it is true that BA pilots have always voted the way their union has recommended. I and many others, have almost always voted against that recommendation. It is why I have finally left BALPA, but if you have a problem with any of the terms and conditions changes of the past decade or two, why don't you take it up with BA or BALPA? I think it is highly unfair to blame your collegaues for simply majority voting the way their union recommended.

You summed it up nicely there.