You got redundancy through LIFO? Lucky you....some of us expected that after decades in post and it was denied. Don't bank on LIFO - if it is attacked, NOBODY wants to defend it! Including unions.

It is very strange that here in "the land of the free" (I am not originally from here, worked there till 05) pretty much every airline is unionized, all are LIFO, conditions (currently, at least) are way better. What happened in the EU that unions have no power, Wizz and Ryan thrive, BA has awful T/C (aso)?

Not saying it's right but the logic is that in difficult times, when a company is trying to reduce costs, LIFO might mean retraining someone on another type, which is a cost to the company, which is what they're trying to avoid.

Secondly, BA's employees are mostly from the UK, a Western European country where living costs are high and therefore salaries need to be commensurate with this. Ryanair and Wizz mostly hire cheap labour from Eastern Europe. Those airlines can therefore offer cheaper fares on the same routes. The legacy carriers have to (on some routes) compete with this. Big Europe allows these companies to take advantage of this. It is not a level playing field unfortunately, but it makes a lot of business men with friends in politics very wealthy. The US is a similar land mass size to Europe but it is one country with (broadly speaking) identical hiring and labour laws. Salaries from one state to the next are also near identical.

Spot on

Also difficult to unionise across so many countries & freedom of movement allows them to bring in crews from different countries to break strikes

I don't think it's much to do with "Big Europe" or enriching businessmen. It's the free market responding to a globalised and easily relocated workforce. Can an expensive Western Europe based pilot add more value to the business than one who's located somewhere cheaper to live? If not, makes sense to outsource. Leads to cheaper fares and more people being able to enjoy air travel.

You're 180 out, in Europe we have a level-ish playing field, in the US they have protectionism.

Well that depends how you define "level playing field"
As you said yourself.
Would a low cost airline based in France be able to have the same cost base as one based in Romania.
Given all the employment protections and minimum pay etc etc.

Lots of talk but what is the actual offer and schedule for a DEC? PPJN seems a bit outdated and focused on the Embraers.

Is it that bad?

Is it that bad ?
 

...
1. See here for PPJN - DITW. https://www.pprune.org/terms-endearm...ppjn-dead.html

2. Well, possibly, but not as bad as this ...

https://www.pprune.org/terms-endearm...cruitment.html

At least in BA Lite LGW, you probably won't be forbidden to discuss T & C with any external agency ...

According to recent Telegraph scuttlebutt, New Flybe are requiring a prior Non Disclosure Agreement as a condition of employment.

LFH
...

I haven’t heard of any BA liveried flights from LGW this summer except a Scottish one. All others seem to be on Vueling or Iberia express.
are they actually running ??

I had an invitation to assessment email last week and decided to withdraw my application. Better money at easyjet.

Well done 👍 desperate times and all that but the more people who decline these types of conditions the better it is for all of us in the long run

Well I suppose so, but unless you’re a cadet they don’t seem to be much interested in you. I hope I’m wrong !

What, you mean the chance to earn c£100k (not amazing, I admit) and be based near your home airport? I'd take that over earning £130k and being based in the a*se end of nowhere, thank you very much. Bad conditions in your eyes but decent in the eyes of many others I'd imagine.

Indeed, two years after my last flight I'm working in a local shop for £18k. I used to earn that in a month but I'd jump at a 'not amazing' £100k with BA having had the reality check of earning 9 quid an hour.

The Spanish Imposition
 

BA Euroflyer's expectation was eighteen aircraft and more than two dozen shorthaul destinations from Gatwick by end of May 2022, for which they have been taking bookings for several months.

Since the BA Gatwick Lite pilot voting hiatus last year - ("We'll ballot until you vote Yes") - BA Euroflyer, who will be operating on the BA AOC for a while, has since -

1. Unsurprisingly failed to attract enough volunteers from the ranks of serving BA captains and co-pilots and even from their own pool of temporary and permanent unwanted, who think that a fixed six year 'secondment' might be a freeze too far especially if they are close to the mandated requirements for command.

2. Boasted of the flood of qualified external applicants from Easyjet, Wizz, FR (who all seem to be paid significantly more than Euroflyer is offering) and from various dole queues around Europe - many of whom have since been ignored or failed to demonstrate any reasonable standard.

3. Had to arrange for promised flights to be operated to a large extent this year by - take your pick from - Vueling or Iberia Express, Finnair, Titan, BA Shorthaul at LHR etc.

The latest scuttlebutt according to our 'favourite's' apoplectic Captain in the pub last night, is that Iberia will be supplying a couple of dozen co-pilots specially promoted who will join Euroflyer on the BA MSL as DECs and as a sweetener, will have their pay enhanced by the parent company. Apparently a lot of that is 'according to the Spanish Pilots Union' who may have jumped the announcement gun, because it was 'news' to everyone else.

Thus there is likely to be much accusation and denial before all the ducks are singing from the same hymn sheet. The principal subject of outraged 'debate' seems to be - "What is Balpa doing to stand up for its members ?" - Short answer - "Nothing we can do, old boy, but stand by for comms."

Assuming he doesn't resign from Balpa (again) for Balpa's alleged support for the Spanish Imposition, we may find out more at Quiz Night on Friday, because he says BA has screwed up his recency (again) so he's lost another long trip (again). A long hot summer will not be good for his wellbeing.

LFH
...

...
It appears BA Euroflyer can't find enough properly qualified pilots to operate their 'planned' services from Gatwick even with scheduled backup from BA at Heathrow.

Our mate says his mate on the A320 is now getting regular 'begging texts' to be a good team player and nip down to Gatwick to help Euroflyer at short notice (ie. on the day.) He was well off his game at Quiz Night, fuming as well about silence from Balpa on this and similar problems at LHR. It needs to get sorted quick, or he's off our team as well.

No one seems to know whether Euroflyer has got any actual pilots of their own yet.

It must be costing someone a fortune, especially if Euroflyer has to contribute to 'Head Office Costs' on top of all the outsourcing.

LFH

Just bumping this thread. Anybody know how many Captains they’re looking for at the moment?

Sixteen aircraft according to the website so I guess about 80+ Captains. With such narrow experience criteria, I am not sure where they are going to find them. Poaching from Wizz and Easy seems to be the only option and they are unlikely to get many applicants from the latter.

They won’t have much luck with wizz either. Pay is below wizz which is problematic…

Has anyone gone for selection with BA recently? I have been told they have changed their Psychometric testing compared to previous years, as well as the assessment day in Waterside, it appears it runs slightly different than before.

If anyone has gone through selection recently can you post a quick recap? What were the psychometric tests like?

EF can enjoy the new ex pink DFO from now I hear.

I see the EF job vacancy has been removed from the BA careers page. Does anyone know if they have managed to recruit enough DEC's to cover the 16 aircraft or are they still planning to wet lease into the next season?

I think they were back filling most of them from their redundant pilots and suitable candidates from mainline holdpool? I'm guessing all done if advert has gone.

Floundering ............
 

...Indeed - I can't find any Euroflyer pilot vacancies on the BA website, nor indeed any ads placed directly by Euroflyer.

However, a gash google for "EF Pilot recruitment" brings up a number of seemingly current ads by various agencies I've never heard of ** - for direct entry pilots or direct entry captains. These do not seem to be made by Euroflyer. Some of them seem to be catch-all 'job-search engines.' So I have no idea whether any of them lead anywhere useful, or whether they are out-of-date dross, because you mostly have to register before they will tell you anything. ** For instance - GB-Melga, AviaNation, Jobriton and even LinkedIn.

Anyone seriously looking for a pilot job will already know the above. The word in our pub Friday night was that Euroflyer is still looking for pilots but the quality of applicants is questionable, there is a big shortfall in entry training capacity, and anyone in their right mind with the required type rating and 'acceptable to BA' ought to be looking elsewhere on account of the rubbish T & C.

The underlying opinion is that BA is flounderingly and micro-manageringly unable to decide from day to day what the pilot requirements are for both EF and Mainline and that EF is (unsurprisingly) getting a bit desprit.

Good luck to all pilot job-seekers.

Thanks Flash,
That's interesting. I only thought about it after recently looking through the list of TRE's on the CAA website and spotting several extremely experienced, qualified and capable former colleagues who are still out of work. If BA is struggling to find quality applicants and care about standards, they need to drop the crap about needing to be a current Airbus commander because that is preventing these trainers and many other capable line pilots from applying. If they are struggling for quality, then it is entirely of their own doing. If they actually put a bit of money into training, they would have the benefit of a new crop of potential trainer talent for free but so far, they just seem to be going down the road of the worst of the LoCo's and it will eventually bite them.

From Go to EF; time for EF to Go
 

From the BA careers website;

"You’ll feel at home here if you embrace timeless British values and modern Britain’s strengths: knowhow, creativity, energy, diversity and open-mindedness – and a sense of respect, responsibility, fair play and knowing whose turn it is to make the tea."

Which British value is having pilots fly the same aircraft, from the same city, in the same uniform, for less pay? I understand Covid has been awful and why people have applied for EF. But to reinstate BA's claimed respect and fair play to the UK pilot community, I sincerely hope EF goes the same way as Go.

Hiring back Barbara Cassani, would be a start.

The maths test is done online before going and is random questions.

Same day for group exercises, face to face, interview and multi tasking.

They also try and sell how great Euro Flyer is on the lower salary but higher flight pay as they cannot attract anyone.

Many people go for the interview and after meeting the BA recruitment team, changing mind about main line and Euro flyer. They will find it hard to attract people, especially those with U.K license, right to work in U.K that are current with a Airbus rating. When considering Jet 2, Easy etc are offering better deals overall.

4% this year and 4% next year.

Yep guess we will know more next week.

It had better be more than 4% or I suspect there will be a large rejection……I was thinking more like 15% !

Busdriver01, thank you.

I had low expectations but... wow.

Just to expand on this. Under the new scheme, if you have a trip change after 6pm local, you're effectively going to be expected to keep to your original report time, and BA crewing will let you know 4 hours before your report what you're going to do. Anything that clears within 3 hours of your original finish time is fair game.

It reads like the first step on the road to "your days off are yours, everything else is BA's" which was the attitude at the bottom feeder turboprop outfit I got away from 15 odd years ago.

As for the PRP "settlement", there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said already. A kick in the slats.

To anyone going through the joining process at the moment think hard. You aren't going to matter to BALPA (and by extension BA) for at least a decade. This pay deal proves it.

You have just described the already extant rostering system at LGW.

And the BALPA cheer-leaders calling it a great deal......

"Opportunity to wipe the slate clean"
"powder dry"
"no alternative"
"next pay deal"......

The deal for euroflyer is atrocious. Didn’t these guys join BA originally? Where is Balpa?

Spineless (when it comes to junior trash, anyway).

Let the BACC be very clear on this, "BA set a red line on return to original payscales for the PRP members". Rest assured everybody though, "it was a big matter for the BACC" - so big that they plan to revisit it some time in another life....

Can you imagine Mick Lynch coming out with such utterly pathetic defeatist talk?

All that said though, is anybody genuinely surprised at this proposed outcome?

Struggling to find quality applicants? Lol
 

All I can say is I applied as DEC last November with >12,000 hours on the A320 (8,000 in command), and I didn’t even get an interview at BA LGW (nor at Jet2). I’m 50, and had been out of flying for 8 months.

I don’t know what criteria these airlines are looking for, but clearly A320 experience isn’t one of them. Maybe they had enough DECs applying from EZY, FR, and Wizz?

Luckily I did eventually find a UK carrier who wanted me as A320 DEC.

I think they are looking for A320 rated, those are the only ones who seem to be getting assessments. Dare I say age probably came into it in your case?