2024 Recruitment?
 

Had anyone been through the mill for Virgin this year? I have my second interview with Zenon scheduled and I'd love some insight before I go in. Any advise much appreciated!

Wondering why you think that? From my perspective (as someone with the choice right now) I'm finding it hard to decide.

Are they still using Jet Masteraclass rubbish procedure trainer as “sim” for the assessment?

When was 750hours ever called part time!

How common or easy it do do mixed fleet flying on the a330 a350. Is there a certain requirements based on hours/experience or seniority to determine it?

and what is expected when you say rebalancing of destinations with the fleet?

Hi femfly, I have tried to respond to your message but the system states that you don't want to receive messages/emails ? ......ah, maybe because you are new here. Give it a few more posts and pm me.

I probably don't have the info you require though, unfortunately.

Hi all, can someone explain more about the staff travel? We were told during their roadshow that the staff travel scheme was very flexible and that you could have quite a number of people on the list, a brief read here and on google suggests that everyone except spouse needs to travel with the employee, is that true?

Nope, not correct: any registered travellers can travel unaccompanied on Virgin aircraft.

However extended family/friends may be restricted on other airlines, depending on what category of traveller they are, and the particular inter-airline agreement.

That says a lot.. they are struggling to get pilots and retain them after the debacle of the Covid years.

Do yourself a favour and go to BA. Better route network and better all round, and probably won’t make you redundant in five years time.

Crew are still leaving Virgin every month and it's still not a happy place.

Latest union agreement, now has the company saying they cannot to commit to certain things.

it’s not been a happy ship since Covid… Taking secondments from EasyJet is telling.

Trust me as someone who left recently it’s much better at BA.

Avoid like the plague
 

VAA have a nasty habit of ignoring industrial agreements. The 2001 LIFO agreement ignored during Covid resulting in 15 year captains being made redundant because on the wrong fleet, 6 month junior FOs retained. The Managed Returned Pathway scheme for hold pool pilots failed the first test of replacing exiting pilots with ones from the hold pool… not able to at this time.

Government furlough scheme not utilised to save pilot jobs despite aircraft merely being grounded and a clear future requirement to crew them. VAA cited no money for the conversion courses to retrain senior pilots then paid the management team millions in bonuses shortly thereafter. This was all agreed by the BALPA chairman who is now head of flight crew.

It’s no longer a legacy, seniority airline. You will spend your career under a cloud of uncertainty, knowing that they will/can make you redundant using any criteria that suits them at any given time.

Join BA if you have the option where seniority principles are respected and you can at least plan on career stability based on this principal.

OMG, is this really the case? How can he have any credibility with the pilots, or even other VAA managers?

He doesn’t, they mock him.

But really the question should be why would anyone trust a manager that has repeatedly shown he only looks after his own “career”….

I’m not shocked. When you have people with years of seniority leaving a supposed seniority based company it’s telling.
Bullying by management is endemic in Virgin. If you dare to raise a safety concern or even simply question them you have a target painted on you.
Sexual harassment is covered up and excused as banter so for the ladies it’s definitely not a safe place for women. And more so if you are LGBTQ, which is completely the opposite to what they try to make out.

By all means if money is your driver, yes they have had a nice pay rise, but the devil is in the details and trust me VAA will shaft you, and not even have the decency to lube up first.

But if you want a safe and secure environment to beae
to plan for your future and family come to BA. Or go to DHL, Tui or anywhere else than VAA.

I have also heard stories that back up everything you say. Toxic.
BA, TUI, DHL, are way better options.

Just have to look at how many people are taking them to employment tribunal. I’ve never known a company that prefers to spend money on lawyers and payouts than fix the toxicity.

But virgin are only worried about one thing and that is brand image. Unfortunately for them more and more people realise it’s just Ryanair with long haul aircraft. And that’s not just amongst crew and colleagues past and present, passengers that used them in the past are saying the same.

It’s a real shame as I know it was better. When I joined all those many moons ago it was a friendly and collaborative environment where you could count on colleagues to look out for each other. Now because of the toxicity from above everyone is scared, crew will sell people down the river to get a promotion and no one dare question anything for fear of reprisal.
And it’s got to a point where I know from conversations with the flight ops inspector for the caa this is very much on their radar.

hi guys,
does anyone know where the Boeing TR courses are held for VA?

The vast majority of the nearly 1000 pilots are quite happy.
Biggest problem is a few troublemakers with loud mouths and unfounded rumours.
Quite a few entitled characters but the vast majority are great to work with.
Money is better, great pension and a redundancy agreement at last.