Just got the second Dear John letter in a year; before bidding is closed (May 10th, 2015) I got knocked back and for the second time in a row not even invited for the first round, having prepared screening questions and texts of 600 and 300 words, with plenty of motivation music. So how can one 'meticulously' prepare for this? Is there a secret password that opens Sesame? Reason for rejection surely can't be my experience (I'm type rated on 787 , and TRI on 737, 14000 h total and 10000 PIC on wide body...). Age perhaps? (48) So what's the magic word that opens the gates?

Hoping to get a second shot at BA later this year.

It seems that all recruitment is now on to the A320 with a few exceptions.

What is the lifestyle like now on the Airbus at LHR? How many nightstops per month for a junior FO? Are they long enough to see the city your staying in any more? How many days off average per month? How many sectors per day? Is a take home of around £4000-4200 realistic first year? Is trip trading possible and easy to do, or do the company discourage swaps?

Sorry for asking so many questions, it now just seems hard to get up to date information on this stuff.

You beat me to it, twicehold. I'm hearing lots of rumours of how hard A320 FOs are working but little first-hand. Grateful for any info.

Ladies and Gents,

Joining BA as a junior pilot, you will find yourself in blind line territory, so you can put in preferences for the trips that you want, however on saying that last month I noticed a hell of a lot of junior guys on trip lines.

I typically find myself with anything from 11 to 15 days off a month, depending on leave duty free weeks etc.

Trips now range from single day trips, to 5 day trips if that is what you desire. There appear to be more and more 4 sector days kicking around, with early reports and late finishes.

Night stopping these days will provide you enough time to go out and about if you would like to go and see the cities. However, there are rumours kicking around that IAG are looking to change hotel locations, mainly airport hotels.

Yes there is an electronic swapping facilities through the intranet and one bid line program. The beauty of this system is there is so much uncovered work you often find yourself with the ability to re-write your own roster if what you get on a blind line doesnt suit you, and it always gives you options to pick up overtime if you would like to earn extra bunce.

I personally, am enjoying BA I have been there 3 years, its a great place to be, with lots of options and is a stable environment. Even in the time I have been there there has been lots of movement and change with commands, guys moving to long haul, new routes, new aeroplanes.

Hope that helps.

All the best.

Very helpful, CAT3C, thank you.

Funnily enough the reason for that has come up in debate elsewhere about the short haul life style, and might be worth knowing.

Blindline=company writes your complete roster - their job to get you to CAP.

At the moment under the current rule set the company is quite constrained on how it "builds" the lines - result is lots of blindlines end up under CAP, possibly bulked out with a day/days Time Assignability ( sort of home stand-by), nevertheless a Blindline holder is "pay protected", i.e. always paid as if they had worked to CAP.

Tripline= Trip line holder tries to build their own roster. Their own job to make CAP - don't make it they may lose pay in certain circumstances,

You may have sacrifice days off to avoid losing cash, or these days increasingly risk having extra work that gets dropped on the line during the Roster Assign process....

It seems to be becoming increasingly common to see the very junior guys working like the clappers on carp triplines whilst the guys just above them are picking up blindlines in order to try to get some time off - which works well if you don't mind a few days uncertainty over any Time Assignable days.

However...I'll also add the heads up that some of the constraints on the company regarding blindline build are being removed later this year, more controls may well come off in a couple of years under Bidline 2017, so blindlines are going to be more efficient, which certainly won't mean working less... :oh:

Hi Wiggy

I know quite a lot has changed since I took VR back in '09, but are junior guys 'forced' to pick up a Trip Line now even if they don't bid for it? If so, that's quite a change as back in the day they became Blind Line holders and all unallocated Trip Lines were broken up with the individual trips going back into the Stage 2 pot.

TopBunk

AFAIK that's still the case but I know some are still reluctant to effectively "nil bid" because of the loss of any control over days off and so would rather chance things with a poor trip line. I rather suspect that might start to change over the next few months - which might make things interesting for the company.

Given the levels of recruitment over the next 12-24 months would it be fair to conclude new joiners will move up the 320 seniority list at rates faster then previously seen in BA?

Is it possible to explain how different life is for someone in the bottom 20% of the LHR 320 fleet compared to say someone sitting half way up. Would it be described as marginal or substantial? Is it possible to compare the life of a senior A320 pilot to that of a junior pilot who will remain junior for years as a DEP onto a longhaul fleet?

Who knows?..That depends on the whole host of unknowns that determine whether recruiting continues...as I'm sure you realise.

In general recruiting at BA has always been stop and start since they started (?restarted) DEP recruitment in the late 80's. In any event the nearer the front end of a recruitment bulge you are the better, so I suspect the likes of CAT3C is probably well placed, whereas someone joining in a year or two might end up stuck at the bottom of a list if for unknown reasons recruitment dries up again.

Here is how it goes. In the last three years I have moved up about 75 places on the MSL. Then suddenly whilst not really moving up the list you find that you are 300-350 places off the bottom and shooting up the Airbus list. It will then probably slow and become stagnant again for a while with just the normal attrition rates etc. What is causing this movement at the moment is the result of the BMI slots starting to transfer to LH and BA expanding into new markets. If your offered a place on the A320 today or the 747 next month for Christ sake take the A320 now because your position on the MSL determines everything. If you don't believe me you should see the number of shoes that have been left for me to polish :}

Your logic's sound re the MSL, as long as both the MSL and the company continues in it's current form. TBH though if they really were both guaranteed slots (and there's no such thing I know), I know which I would be inclined take....

So - what is the MTOW / seating config of your rating as this is the primary consideration

Just out curiosity: does anybody know if there a non british nationals (non Commonwealth as well) flying for BA?

Well apart from lot and lots of Europeans there's at least one of our American friends.

I can think of Americans, Lebanese, Colombian as well as loads of Australian, Canadian and European pilots.

So do I... another 9/11 and I know which type/role is more likely to be secure :oh:

The Texan doesn't even have a British passport!
;)

The nationality question and questions about the number of Brits as BA seems to crop up on a regular basis...BA's requirements are pretty clear:

"A valid passport (with minimum of 12 months before expiry date) allowing unrestricted worldwide travel

The unrestricted right to live and work in the UK".

Remember the unrestricted right to live and work in the UK can be gained through family ties/links, not just nationality (e.g being an EU national).

Given what we see on the Flight Deck every day I'd say (as previously stated) there's a wide spread of nationalities.

Are pension contributions based on the old 24pp or the new 34pp salary?