This thread is fascinating! We've got a bunch of half wits joining in with the sole intention of knocking Thomson. Sure, there's plenty wrong with the company but imho there's plenty more that's right.

We have a modern fleet that is about to grow and become even more modern. We have a reasonable set of Ts and Cs and a Scheduling Agreement that sits well inside the EASA limits. We have representation that can still influence management.

We have just had the annual bid and of the 49 new Commands around 20 are the direct result of BALPA engaging with the company as are additional airframes which in part accounts for the 60 new recruits, all of whom didn't take the p, figuratively and literally. We have just received a bonus of an average £2,000 and an additional £500 in Thomson Travel vouchers. A SAYE share scheme is operating and IIRC gives one free share for every 4 bought. Shares are currently trading at c£12. As a year 19 Captain I take home £6K+ a month after all the various deductions and work hard but not excessively. Caution, I'm one of the luckier ones, I'm on a great fleet and still have a FS pension. I'm acutely aware that others aren't so fortunate. That is why I became a rep and that is why I hope to very soon be able to give good news for those joining. Don't ask. I also look forward to providing details of our latest pay deal which should shut a few who know nothing of this airline up. Oh, and the back problem my wife has is being expertly treated under the free private healthcare.

There is a history of managements bearing down on Ts and Cs in lean times. This applies to all airlines ad the deniers are deluding themselves. There is a history of changing back in TOM during better times and I'm pretty certain that will happen if we are unable to attract the "top talent" alluded to above. This year was close for getting the numbers but the discussed solution was to expand the numbers of Non Type Rated applicants where there was a surplus of suitable applicants. Rather than accepting a lower standard the solution was to increase cost. Granted, some of that cost will be borne by the successful applicants, all of whom appear able to see beyond the end of their nose.

Returning to the bid, a reasonable number of those who've joined in the last few years are now about to join the 787 fleet. The PPY bit was only ever "up to 5 years" and history meant that in the past thus meant 1 year. Unfortunately some took this to mean a precedent was set and were dismayed to find that they were looking at longer. If I were a betting man, that should change.

So, the detractors out there who've turned this thread into the typical Pprune !!!! slinging contest, over to you, how's your Ts and Cs and your future? This bit of the forum is all about that. Just a hint like.

yeoman, have all of the 60 positions been filled?

Well said Yeoman. Happy New Year matey!

Well done yeoman, good stuff.

What's the news for commands in the future? New aircraft? Do we aye a retirement bulge coming up, any numbers/year?

For what it's worth I ve had more time out of the company on time off through approved schemes/detachments than time in the company.

It's been fantastic!

Commands filled up to summer 2017 apparently with a steady 15-20 thereafter based on current fleet plans and retirement projections. Having said that, no one envisaged 50 upgrades this year so who knows... the future looks bright either way.

He says... cue 2016 recession....

Sorry if my post was immoderate but it seems to have struck a chord with some. They of course work for TOM and therefore know what's what and have the perfect excuse to have a moan and to have a moan at me as a rep.

I'm sick of dropping in here from time to time to post what I hope is useful info only to find a bunch of people who presumably lessen the pain of their own lot by finding fault in the lot of others.

Simply put, I've yet to see any of them answer my question and several thousand qualified applicants applied for the latest round of recruitment. To answer In The Clouds' question, yes, all 60 places were filled even after some changed their minds and withdrew.

For that reason I'd be reasonably comfortable in saying the company will now have to reappraise their remuneration offer to continue to attract the talent, a point made clearly by Matey who is of course another chap who has actually sat in a room with a TOM manager or ten and had it from the horse's mouth rather than a mate of a guy who once got a peck on the cheek from the mum of a temp Hosite who last worked for us in 1972.

As for promotions, yes a great result this year after some serious discussions and I'm hopeful we might be able to jemmie a few more. There is a retirement bulge of sorts, high teens in numbers IIRC for the next few years. The early retirement scheme went better than anyone hoped and is a win / win so hopefully we'll revisit that soon.

So, as I said, plenty wrong in the company but show me a company that isn't bearing down on costs at every turn. More importantly, there's a lot more going right and looking good for more to come. To those who want to work for a company that treats you like a God, pays you whatever you ask, asks nothing in return and Bollox to the shareholders and / or owners, I wish you the very best in your search. For everyone else there's a slack handful of not bad employers out there. IMHO, TOM is one, warts and all.

Yeoman
Shame all Nigel's don't live on the same planet as you. Grass is always green and in my humble view TOM is up there. The only down side I can think of is Luton - is there such a thing as a decent hotel there yet...

Sorry Pin, I missed one of your questions. New aircraft is the fleet rollover to the Max and additional 787-9s. In terms of airframe numbers it's +1 and a bit due to them moving around the Group. Pilot numbers will be up IMHO as the 787 starts to really spread its wings and start long runs with a resultant need for more pilots per airframe, longer rotations, 3 crew ops etc.

SH is less certain but history has shown that TUI is big enough yet agile enough to shift emphasis pretty quickly if needed. Spain was hurting badly with the rise of Turkey and Egypt, IMHO we'll see a bit of a rebalancing what with very recent events.

The Nordic LH operation is also blending nicely with new routes opening there with us operating Vietnam sectors from March as well as the current KBV and HKT etc. We're also doing a fair bit of their Caribbean. Some of their pilots have been integrated into our operation for this reason. Flexibility here is also paying dividends after the political pissing contest between Russia and Sweden, the 787 has the legs to go the long way round avoiding Russian airspace, the 767 doesn't so 78s have been switched out to Nordic and 76s to the Caribbean.

Canada is still a viable operation again cooperation and flexibility paying off as we have UK and Belgian airframes and crews out there which justifies extra airframes in the UK in summer. Important point here is that the pilots are a secondary consideration in terms of airframe numbers; if you can get work for the airframes year round you get the pilots. Have a squint round MAN at the number of UK airframes parked up. Now look at the paint jobs; not much blue.

Enough. I'm even boring myself!

Twiglet, no. No such thing as a decent hotel in LTN. You don't have to go there unless you've been bad. Most guys do a two day induction there never to return again. Even ferry flights usually involve a fast car out as soon as you've dumped the aircraft at the hangar.

Oh, add that to the list. Generally OK hotac (some shockers down route, true enough but working on that). Decent surface travel, all paid for. Long Haul into a UK base other than your base is straight into a hotel rather than into the rush hour M25 in Stinky Steve's Minicab.

Any hint from the top about additional 8 bases?

McB

None. That doesn't mean anything though, only I've not heard. 8 would be pretty hard in the UK as most are already covered.

This leaves 2 options:

1. You or someone else is on a wind up mission, it's Rumour Network after all!
2. This has been conflated with a possible closer intergration with Nordic treating their bases as an extension of the UK? Pretty wild but it makes sense to my mind anyway.

No wind up at all. Just a curious bidder after seeing the S17 results showing more RHS leaving the fleet than bidders going on, wondering if the people willing to commute has dried up.

Sorry, you lost me, if people bidding out why 8 new bases??? I've missed what you have meant.

No problem at all.

My own curiosity was trying to seek if the picture surrounding the 787 crewing/basing is complete for S17 based on the bid results.

More RHS are off the fleet purely for command, the bid stopped at PPY pilots. Less FOs on the 787 as a result of the latest bid results.

I'm not a fan of commuting so bidding onto the 8 at the big two bases wouldn't be long term for me, so always hopeful that further bases may pop up in the future for the fleet. Given the fleet size and its rotations, I don't think it's that far fetched. I was curious if the company is struggling to get bidders onto it at the big two.

Oh ok the 78 bases not '8' new bases.

I don't think there's a shortage of bidders for the 787 at LGW/MAN, the problem is that most if not all of them are PPY. Will be interesting to see what the future holds for PPY with respect to the pay deal to be announced in the next couple of weeks.

As somebody who wants to join the company, I just can't justify the 7k for the OCC on top of part time. If they can remove one of those then sign me up! Seems like a nice place to be. Looking forward to seeing what this new pay deal has to offer.

The 7k OCC is a p*ss take and I suspect it's an issue that has been discussed recently at high levels because it clearly prevents people from applying who may be suitable for the job. I thought long and hard about the issue when I joined and it still grates on me today, especially when they have the cheek to type freeze me as well. When this policy came in, the supply of pilots outstripped demand. The reverse may now be true so perhaps this will change, who knows.
If you delay your application by a year or two in the hope that the 7k reduction will disappear it will only bite you in the arse when it comes to bidding for other fleets/bases or command, as others in front of you get what you want before you. There is lots of movement and recruitment at the moment so if you want to join you may as well be as high up the seniority list as you can get. It's a decent place to be at the moment and I would highly recommend it.
As others have suggested those with the long term view have joined the business and not looked back. I don't think the ongoing pay deal will address the PPY issue but hopefully it will sort out the pension debacle.

Thanks for the info, you have a good point on seniority. Unfortunately, my reasons are financial, the first year would be very uncomfortable. I realise it's short sighted, but being long sighted doesn't pay the mortgage or support home life for the next 12 months!

Good luck to all.

Could someone let me know what aircraft use for the sim assessment and if possible where it is based out of. Also what is the profile?


Thanks,

Well at a guess they'll want it to be realistic. So it'll be a 73. It will also be scheduled for 3 in the morning with a detail involving some badly run hellhole nestled somewhere between the Taurus mountains and a line of those 'dodgy looking clouds'. No doubt you'll be vectored into some granite too.

I jest. Thomson is a great company. Good luck!

I was interested to read that those who joined last year have now been made full time and those joining this year will stay full time until May 17 at the earliest.

Market forces influencing TOM recruitment policy as predicted.

Exactly my point Matey. Life good?

Excellent thanks Yeoman. Mainly shut in the box at LGW though!

Great. Well, if the rehab works there is a chance they'll let you back into the mainstream population. Worked for me and now completely Training Planning free.

Be good. Maybe see you next week as I'm in LGW for a few nights.

I'm starting with Thomson in a few months on the 738. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it but they did a last ditch assessment day recently and most, if not everyone on my assessment day had the rejection letter last year but still had the call this time around. I just hope I've done the right thing jumping from high up on a seniority list to the bottom of Thomson's. Good luck to all who has just been through the assessment day, I hope you've got through.

Reversethrustset

Only time will tell whether you have made the correct decision. Hopefully you have! What we do know is that a significant number of 'new recruits' have not turned up on the day they were expected as they either had second thoughts or have gone elsewhere. This explains why some pilots that were initially rejected have subsequently been deemed suitable and asked to join. Welcome!

Not quite.

4 of the original 61 selected decided that their future lay elsewhere. They all communicated that decision prior to day one. A little different from a significant number not turning up IMHO.

The recruitment was reopened by simply reviewing the first screening criteria that was based on hours. This meant that otherwise suitable candidates for the full assessment who had been originally screened out purely on hours were asked to come for assessment. The assessment standard remained as previous as it was recognised that the hours screen was pretty crude but the assessment standard was the real test of suitability.

It is very clear that market forces are now kicking in with opportunities opening up with a number of operators.

Welcome to the latest batch.

Yeoman, I've got more hours than I know what to do with and I was originally screened out. Do you mean I may have had too many? There was an eclectic mix of people at the assessment with half having the experience to have at least 4,000+. The good news is we are spending year 1 on full time. I can't wait to get started.

Thanks yeoman.

Reverse Thrust

No idea if I'm honest. There may have been other screens that were in play but that's speculation on my part.

The whole screen thing needs looking at as its a fairly crude way of thinning out thousands of applications to the few hundred they actually invite to assessment.

Good new for you though and welcome.

7E7

No problem

Yeoman, as you probably know the application system was very, very basic with just two questions in it on the subject of the EFB & single engine taxying, both of which we use in abundance in my current airline. It almost seemed too basic to screen out candidates but hey I'm not complaining one bit as I was very fortunate to be given a second chance and I passed the whole process and got the offer.

Definitely good news for me and thank you. I look forward to getting started, but not necessarily to another type rating. See you around the network :ok:

PPJN updated today mentions recruitment for late Summer 17 courses, are they planning that far ahead or is it possibly a typo?

Commands, type changes and recruitment for Summer '16 are well under way.

In a surprise moment of foresight a few weeks ago, commands and type changes for Summer '17 were announced, and although I don't recall seeing it, probably a figure for recruitment as well.

I'm pretty sure CD said another 50 in a recent video blog (the one where he interviews loads of other people I don't really know) although to be honest, I wasn't really listening. I'll see if it's still on the iPad email later and check.

Recruitment now open.

Good luck

Have Thomson massively underestimated the amount of pilots they need this year to be opening up again, or was this always planned?

It's for courses starting earliest Oct 16 so looking to be completed for Spring 17. Training for this year is in full swing. Sort of:}

In short, planned.

Ish