Source please? First I have heard of it.

Good luck
 

Good luck to you all at BA, particularly those who are getting the opportunity to return to the skies at long last.
I left last year after 15 amazing years on the triple, partly due to mental health issues, so when BA offered VR, I declined the offer of entering any of the pools and fell on my sword! Part of my reasoning for doing so, a small part admittedly, was that at the age of 50 it would be better to let a younger person have the chance of the great career that I had than for me to cling on. I’d had enough of the sleep deprivation too.
There were about 4500 pilots on the MSL when I left. In a group of diverse people of that size, some will be selfish, some will not. In my experience, the vast majority were good eggs who were far from selfish.
As an aside, for anybody dithering about retiring, if personal circumstances allow of course, I would recommend it. I am significantly poorer financially than I was whilst flying, but much, much richer in other ways and my mental health is A1 again. Do I miss trying to sleep in the oily, smelly high vis jacket at 30W? Nah!
Best to all.

P1969, well said. I hope to going that way in a couple of years myself. If you miss the flying at all, then try locking yourself in the stair cupboard in the dark with the hoover running 😉

Can you provide a bit more than this? Respectfully, what you may have heard or wanted to hear could easily be framed as confirmation bias when compared against the tone of your other posts which to be frank are basically loaded with conspiracy theories.

Now advertising for DECs

Intrigued to see how this plays out!

BA recruiting direct entry captains for LGW
 

https://careers.ba.com/job/gatwick/l...48/18205335872

Jwscud

Indeed……be interesting to still be a fly on the wall on one of the BALPA forums…..

I can only assume there were not enough internal valid bids in this years PRIAM to fill the vacancies..

We were told only weeks ago that the 320 fleet was in surplus, this disappeared when NEWCO was approved, if no one wants to move to LGW this surplus must still be there, I wonder how that’s going to be resolved now the CRS folk are being welcomed back.

Interesting times ahead me thinks..

wiggy

if only there was a way to pay a subscription and gain access eh?

What? So you can spend your time reading about self entitled moaners (small minority of serial posters) with nothing better to do than bang on about how this, that and the other will mean 50p less a year in their pension. No thanks.

Anyway, this proposal for DEC. Yet another hammer blow for the 249 made compulsory redundant for JM's ego trip. I'm sure Sean Doyle has his number marked now, anyway. How on earth he obtained the role in the first place is beyond me - you only have to listen to his negativity for 5 minutes to ask yourself why. Interesting that the negative rhetoric from 2020 is now coming back to bite him hard, with the cancellation of services due to lack of crew and equipment.

3Greens
:)
Did consider it but TBH time moves on and reading about how bidding is working out or what the latest gripe is about crew security screening moved down the list of priorities..

Is the recruitment process going to be aligned with that of mainline or CityFlyer?

Can someone post T&Cs?

Do I have to wear a hat?

MonarchOrBust

I would expect it to be mainline as these are positions on the main BA seniority list.

Oh joy. Don't think I have the will or ability to go through the BA aptitudes anymore. :{

Year 1 Basic £73048
Flying Pay £30ph
Subsidence Hourly rate £2.50

The £105,000 quoted is based on 800hours plus I believe, but whether that’s achievable is questionable

The scheduling agreement is another story, and the main reason I would guess that very few, if any LHR pilots have applied for the positions.

Engagement freeze at Gatwick is 6yrs and all redundant pilots that return to a CPT/FO position at LGW will be senior to any DEC that is recruited. It will likely be a long wait for any transfer.

Jwscud

Have mainline ever recruited DECs? Will recruitment First Officers take part in this campaign?

Would 20 years for a Long Haul command be realistic?

It is unsurprising they have immediately had to resort to DEC's. The offer will be unappealing to most currently employed pilots given the rostering/pay/freeze issues.

The more interesting question is whether they will get enough external applicants, given that you must now have the right to live and work in the UK on top of being a currently operating captain with A320 experience (does this mean you have to be currently operating the A320 as a captain? There is your example of ambiguity for when they ask you at selection - you're welcome). Oh and as skyrocket says, you get a 6 year freeze at Gatwick. I would suggest the group of people who meet all these requirements and can be enticed by the current offer will not be large. Smaller still once the recruitment process has taken its toll.

The revised pay after the initial rejection is now:
Year 1 Basic £81849
Flying Pay £20 B/H
Subsistence remains the same at £2.50 D/H

Northern Monkey is spot on about the availability of A320 current skippers with the correct license and employment rights. I wonder if this is one reason for the ad not publishing minimum hour requirements? The more senior A320 guys with hours galore are unlikely to be unemployed right now.

Don't know if its an oversight by BA , but if you check the job requirements on the PDF when you enter the recruitment portal ,there is no mention of A320 experience being required .

I doubt the recruitment team would look too favourably on candidates that don’t have it, based on the job description stating a requirement for A320 command experience and a current TR

The pay packet of 20 years ago.

How bad is the rostering? The only 320 skippers I can imagine taking it would be from a certain pink airline wanting to be based close to home in Gatwick as conditions are probably similar but with better perks possibly from BA... Due to no slots I assume pink wont get the expansion they dream of there for a long time to come...

How come there's no FO recruitment at the same time?

All FO recruitment will come from the prp (redundant BA pilots)/ previous hold pool

There’s still 249 of us patiently waiting..

I'm not sure it's the tests that will deter ... so much as the low pay and LGW. All the locos on a full contract, pay far more than that for 800 hours, and offer nice rural provincial bases if you want them . And I see the seniority list is being vaunted as a "perk" - oh the irony, and another example of how seniority list suppresses pay.

The reality of anyone joining for the supposed perk of the BA MSL has to fully understood. Yes technically you will be on the Master Seniority List however you will join with a six year engagement freeze at LGW, do NOT expect to move quickly at the end of that freeze as LGW has been historically difficult for BA to crew, pilots have very often been held back at the end of their freeze because the company physically couldn’t fill the seats with replacements. This problem will be even worse now given how unattractive BA have made the new LGW. Six years could very easily turn into something more resembling ten; a very long time to spend on what is a deeply unsatisfactory level of pay and with fatigue inducing rosters just for a carrot that will be visible but always taken just out of reach.

Where has the job advert gone? Its no longer listed.

Dragon Baron

Put up in error before internal bids had been processed, and more importantly before any expressions of interest from redundant pilots, or hold pool candidates were obtained 🙄

This may change the requirement to few, or none

The ad was shared by BA pilots (linked to recruitment) on LinkedIn. It gave the impression it was legit. Clearly not an admin error.

BA forgot that they have 357 shafted people to prioritise first. If you ask me, it was just another move in order to further irritate the BACC and create even worst relations.

It’s on latest jobs:

https://www.latestpilotjobs.com/jobs/view/id/16587.html

Its back on their website

eagle21

No........

Think LONGER........

Also, how very interesting that BA have a surplus of 320 crew at LHR, but because the terms are so rubbish at LGW they will now recruit externally to fill those roles (if anyone is daft enough to leave Easy etc to lower their salary with BA - remember this is BA that HAS made pilots redundant, an presumably will again should the need arise).

So we have BA with (say) 700x 320 pilots at LHR, but only needs (say) 600, and has a need for (say) 150x pilots at LGW.... but rather than offer reasonable terms so 100 transfer from LHR to LGW, BA would rather recruit (or try to recruit) 150 more pilots.... thereby they now have 850x Airbus pilots when they only really need 750! Clever (not).

Any another thing..... no inflationary pay rises until AT LEAST January 2024 (and that is only the ~4% that was promised in January 2021 (thereby hopefully taking us back to ~100% of January 2020 pay - remember even after CRS finishes we will still have the ~4% long term reduction)). This is NOT a clever position to be in as RPI inflation was just announced to be 6% and climbing.... 4 years of 6% is.... urmmmmm..... 26.2%..... thats 26.2% DOWN on purchasing power... SUPER :(

BAreject

Anecdotally (no experience of him yet myself) AK is hopeless. Never assume conspiracy when simple incompetence will suffice.

Friendly Low Fares will be the way forward. Basic pay is streets ahead of this. Captains should be grossing around £125K with sector pay/allowances. Pension contribution of 10% and probably about to start hiring for the expanding Airbus fleet.

any information floating about regarding the kind of assessments they're going to have ? Also how many bodies they're looking at hiring ? asking for a friend

Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP

Plus profit share once we get past Covid Captains would have been looking at almost an extra 20k on top of your figures in 2020 had the dastardly virus not emerged...

Not to mention when they inevitably open a LGW base and fill it with 321s you will have the reality of BA pilots looking across the apron at Jet2 pilots flying the same airplanes 50% less annually and earning 20 - 30% more than them. Crazy times.