I reckognised many years ago that BALPA is impotent within BA. The only way BA will ever stop the decline which seems to have seriously snowballed over the last few years, is for the pilots to either unite and strike under the leadership of the union, or for people to leave the company in droves. Union and BALPA are two opposing concepts, so there will never be a strike. Once people start leaving in droves, and I believe that time is only a couple of years away, it will be too late for BA because they will have let things deteriorate so badly that they simply cannot stem the flow of pilots to other airlines.

Just handed my notice in , no regrets at all , see ya later Mr Cruz 🖐🏻

This thread has started to look like something that should be in the Fragrant Harbour forum!! 😄

Where are we all going then? Which other airline is so much better that we will be leaving “in droves”. Very few BA pilots want to work overseas. Very few BA pilots want a SH only existence. So where are we all off to?

There are few better options for a UK based pilot, unless you want to be an A320 Captain with ezy/TUI etc based in the regions. The LH pay and conditions are no better elsewhere. I can only see junior SH captains leaving.

BA know this full well. Despite the angry talk very few people leave. There isn’t much else out there.

For someone thinking of joining, what does this all mean? Specifically speaking.

Back to back trips, less days off between them? Trip construction?

For someone thinking of joining, what does this all mean? Specifically speaking.

Back to back trips, less days off between them? Trip construction?

Just to be clear the changes are unspecified, and are on a very senior managers wish list...

The big change he has specifically mentioned is that he would like us to consider reducing LAX from (the industrially agreed) 48 hour slip to (EASA compliant) 24 hour slip. The manager thinks this could well be popular with the troops because it would give them more time at home, and saves the company money on HOTAC.

Suspicions are once a specific 48 hour slip is dropped to 24 hours then the precedent has been set and all 48 hour slips on the longhaul network would get the same treatment and reduced to 24 unless EASA forced otherwise.

IMHO that means:

1. The days of actually being on a Long haul pilot and being able to “enjoy” a long range destination during a day free of duty might be curtailed/reduced, instead it will typically be: arrive, eat, drink (water only of course.....) sleep, a couple of hours sightseeing/shopping in the A.M. on day two, if you are up to it, then hotel, try to sleep again for an hour or two then it is call and back to work..and that will be almost everywhere. (I know..First world problem.)

2. Down the road without a doubt the company would then look at the time off at home generated by these reduced slips and try to squeeze extra work into the now larger gaps in rosters...it couldn’t be a lot because most folks in Longhaul are 800 hours plus but I could imagine most people could end up picking up an extra handful of trips (TLV, day MADs, BOS etc) in the year...so you wouldn’t end up spending more time at home....

3. Backs to backs...possible and happen now anyway, though pretty much only if you volunteer....

If Klaus gets his wish and LH destinations become nightstops then Long Haul may as well be Short Haul. If you’re not getting to see and enjoy the destinations (and it’s going to be a really difficult ask as Wiggy has already alluded to with the time available) then what’s the point in being a Long Haul pilot? It may well be the tipping point for a great many people. If I’d have wanted to be worked to the bone, slipping 24 hours in Long Haul destinations I’d have joined Emirates. I know I’ll put in place an exit strategy to leave this place if it happens.

Bumped into a BALPA rep today. I hope I wasn’t being fobbed off but KG’s shopping list is being viewed as utter tosh apparently.

Lets see. KG is picking a very big fight with a huge portion of the workforce and with lots of very senior people all at the same time.

Frankly I’m not sure I can carry on with this lot if this gets through. As I’ve already said, I didn’t sign up for this s***.

Time will tell.

Happened at my previous too. Layovers reduced. I’ve always said JSS is only the first step of the grand plan [camera draws away to show white cat being stroked on a leather armchair] . JSS well placed to exploit holes in bidline rules which were specifically written with a sister system in mind. That system gone, tweaks to BLR already been happening for ages.

Limit the line hoarding of the newly created high credit 3 day LAXs etc with limits (sold to the workers as being of benefit to juniors). Then they’re sprinkled about the demographic forcing most rosters to contain more plentiful low credit items. Any day at home benefits nicely put up in smoke, Man hours utilisation achieved. Just one way [camera shows white cat now purring and weird kinky gloved hand reaches for the brandy glass]

BA. Can be a fantastic place to work. Don’t forget that those looking in. It’s not entire gloom. No one saying that. But the blacks are swamping the whites now. So the positives are holding less and less currency with each change. Especially if you’re junior trash like a lot of us. Such a shame. It’s increasingly draining. Often intimidating, not unfair to say almost Stasi-esque through its own actions sometimes (surveil your workers travel on personal time anyone?) and sometimes the comms read a little like a mafioso internal newsletter from the capos.

They now want champagne workers on a beer budget and they don’t mind admitting it. That’s bad. Very bad. That they’re starting to talk openly about it, amid such vast profits. If you join your joining a firm that’s making a fortune where terms are on a down slope. They’re not worried. Post bag’s full apparantly. And I think they’re telling the truth to be fair. It really will come down to personal choice.

I hope the union better will not suggest giving anything up for the “pay rise?. If anything I’d rather they treat lifestyle as a priority, like air. It’s up against the ropes as is. No concessions please.


looks like I picked the wrong year to quit sniffing glue.

I can’t argue with any of that, I just don’t see the alternative employer out there who will attract droves of BA pilots. Our T&Cs will be under attack until the supply/demand ratio tips in our favour. BA need 300+ pilots next year according to the manpower boffins - they will have more than enough pilots applying for those positions. That’s our problem. It’s very difficult to enact meaningful (positive) changes to our working agreements under these circumstances.

It’s pretty obvious “Santa Klaus” is coming for LH, and we have a pay claim in progress, so watch this space.

I agree with the comments above though, BA really isn’t all that bad. There will be DEP offers onto the A350 next year for example - not many opportunities like that exist for UK based pilots.

RightRudder - agree DEP on A350 is awesome on paper, but bottom of the list, jss, and possibly a few hours downroute in (near?) future, max legal hrs, min legal rest, might get tiresome pretty quickly or just impossible to sustain a happy family/social/healthy lifestyle. I have no answers though, just bored/fed up on airport standby and opened up ppprune for first time in years. It’s probably not that bad...but fatigue makes everything worse and I’ve been feeling it for too long.

Which is absolutely disgusting in my opinion. The company are seriously trying to tell us there’s not enough internal bidders? I know there’s a lot of people still frozen but a lot of those guys have done four years slogging it out on Short Haul maybe it might be the right time to reward them for that? No it’s time to slap them in the face yet again with more Long Haul DEP. Let’s face it virtually nobody joins this company because they want to do Short Haul, it’s the big selling point of BA and why the vast majority of us are here.

I’m sorry but the “Master Seniority List is the most important thing, you’ll slot in ahead of them when you move” argument just doesn’t wash any more. When exactly are we going to get to move? I wanted to do Long Haul whilst I was relatively young. That sure ain’t gonna happen any more.

Every Long Haul DEP (and there’s going to be a load of them this year by all accounts) removes a LH position that would have been available in one or two years. When guys ahead of us on the P2 Airbus status list can’t move across to Long Haul we stagnate behind them and can’t benefit from better rosters/bidding power etc. Long Haul DEP disadvantages everyone on the Airbus and I for one (and I’m not the only one by any stretch) resent it massively.