DM Sent

Sim Assessment b747
any tips for the Sim assessment .
many thanks

I've DM'd you with a contact for a 747 sim outfit that specialises in BA prep.

Currently waiting on an applicable date to book a sim check for DEFO LHR. In the meantime, would anyone be kind enough to PM some sim feedback.

Also, are the SH nightstop trips more popular with the senior guys or can you expect some of these as a junior?

The Cairo, Amman, IST, Larnaca and Lisbon are very popular and generally quite senior, especially if they are standovers (30h +). So might be tricky to get them when you're junior...

I agree with the jist of what youre saying, but id say you're a bit out with the destinations. AMM yes, CAI, Yes, ish, but LCA, IST and LIS go fairly junior now. Even pre covid I was getting them at 70-80%seniority, not all the time, but often enough.

I'd say domestic nightstops & Italy seem to be the senior SH trips these days, but honestly most nightstops are OK. The biggest issues are volume of work, and weekend working id say.

As for DE LH they are making offers - I've been told first hand - almost certainly 350.

DM sent re sim prep.

making offers to whom? They’re not advertising DE LH in their current recruitment campaign and BALPA have already nipped this in the bud …for now.

Two aquaintences, 1 is ex PHP, the other was a DEP in the current campaign but missed his initial start date for personal reasons. Both within the last 2/3 weeks.

i wonder for DE LHR ,you can be given other fleets like 787,777?

I would be extremely wary of joining at the bottom of the 777 list and staying there for the best part of the next decade. Workload is utterly horrendous on that fleet in particular.

out of morbid curiosity what does a very junior 777 roster look like? I presume there’s a select list of junior destinations too? Workload examples?

cheers

Expect six three day low credit trips a month with two days off in between. Great if you enjoy JFK, Atlanta and Lagos.

Ouch, so doing 4 euro tours a month as a junior 320 FO is actually a better lifestyle if using effective swaps and opentime.

If given a choice nowadays I would not be touching the 777 with the biggest bargepole known to man. The benefit of joining SH is your relative seniority will rise much faster than it will on the triple and you won’t have to watch yourself stagnate (and in some cases go backwards) in five to six years time when all the unfrozen people who joined the company on the Airbus ahead of you all slot into your seat.

I would definitely choose your example over six night Atlantic crossings a month coming home to be a complete zombie for your minimum days off. Workload is high on all fleets but the 777 is particularly bad and not glamorous at all at that end of the status list.

I did about 4 years on the triple after my 5 year freeze , and it wasn’t great . Never felt so tired ! Every flight we had some sort of MEL as the aircraft are really showing their age. Constantly doing low credit trips. Stuck with a PP24 captain moaning about his huge pension and the difficulties they face …….
But some people think it’s glamorous flying the heavy metal , I guess someone has to do it

You can’t do 6 JFK’s a month JSS blocks that. Take a look at the junior crews on iBid and see what they are actually doing.

Nope but you can do 6 low credit trips (sometimes more with a carry out trip) and plenty of people are doing just that. Spotted one pilot who has leave a leave block with wraps after towards the end of this current month and they’ve still managed to fit in 5 trips :yuk:

What's a 'carry out trip'? TIA

The reality is, if you have the seniority for it, most people will target higher credit trips so they can do fewer trips, which leads to more days off; be they down route or at home. Many people also target weekends off for obvious reasons. This means down the bottom of the seniority of each long haul fleet, you end up with trip two days off repeated over extended periods of time. This is because the trips left over for JSS to work with, are typically lower credit three day trips, with the odd unpopular, slightly longer trip thrown in. This is the same at the bottom of all long haul fleets, it just looks more prevalent on the 777 because it is such a large fleet, so there are more pilots on it who fit into the definition of junior, just as there are also more who fit the description of being senior.