I dont think its a bait&switch from ba. Come on in, the water's fine 🙂
you'll lose the ability to choose trip footprints. you'll have more nights out of bed flying across the Atlantic. You'll have less nights at home and probably less hours at home total. You'll learn to dislike 24hr slips because just as your body is ready to go to sleep the hotel phone will ring with your wakeup.
But you'll get a small bump to your basic salary, you'll make another few hundred quid more in allowances, you'll do way less actual work (10 sectors of which 2 are heavy and 10hrs of it you'll be in the bunk.... or resting in a club seat). You'll get enough time to enjoy the places you are in and see something of the world. Min rest in the hotel doesn't exist in this world.

I think that's pretty balanced.

I would be careful about putting too much emphasis on what fleet you end up on. Yes, if you’ve got 20yrs in SH outside BA and want a change it’s important, however if you’re near the beginning of your airline career, getting lots of sectors and handling doesn’t hurt. I really enjoyed my time in SH, but moved on to LH which is more suitable to my lifestyle - YMMV.

Also, the next ten years will see a lot of movement internally as the bulge of those recruited in the late 80s and early 90s retire. Even without any expansion, there will be many empty seats to fill at the pointy end on all the fleets, LH especially. There should be plenty of opportunity to bid for and achieve postings other than your fleet of joining.

As far as route networks go the 777/787/A350 all have a decent choice of destinations, 777 the most as it includes LGW leisure. The good news for all is that there is a fair amount of seasonal variation and substitution between the fleets, so quite a few destinations move around and everyone gets a go. The A380 will always be a bit limited, but being on what BA terms a “small fleet” can have its own advantages.

In reality, you can have a good time anywhere, and it’s about the people you fly with that make the difficult days more bearable, and in my experience that’s pretty much everybody.

Many thanks for all the info so far. As a newbie would the 350 or 777 be a better place to end up on? With the current outlook is it likely for an early release for a 320 Command from the fleet freeze? Has anyone got a rough idea of a junior 350 FO roster? Plenty of Accra and shorter runs? Thanks

Raw data,no Bird,AP above transition,either 320 or 380 dependent on availability

It depends on your idea of ‘better’, but personally I’d much rather be junior on the 78 than the triple. We’ve got fewer 2 crew East Coast destinations (try 4 or 5 of those on the trot with 2 days off between trips) and more 3 and 4 crew ultra-long haul stuff, so more time in the bunk. :ok:. Lots of India, and no Caribbean (at least yet) but I prefer that. Being a smaller aircraft it often serves thinner routes with smaller airports, so less chance of JFK or ORD lunacy than on the bigger Boeing.

The fleet is still growing and eventually won’t be far off the triple in terms of hulls, but the vast majority of people (both seats) are a pleasure to fly with and the office is a much more modern and comfortable place to sit. Air quality is in a different league and being a generation newer, it’s got some nice toys.

Not many folk moving off the 787.

Good gen thanks. Can you give an idea of what the bottom of the list looks like in terms of rostering? Is there decent route variety or is it Hyderabad and Chennai every weekend?

If only . . . HYD & MAA are relatively senior, but don't expect many weekends off if junior under JSS (and that goes for any fleet, not just the 787). Lots of reserve at the bottom of the seniority list, which - ironically - can result in nicer trips and bigger blocks of days off than a normal month's roster. If not on reserve, expect to get very familiar with Islamabad, Beijing & Shanghai, plus whatever random destinations the JSS computer spits out.

To be honest though, I can't see many people turning down a DEP offer for the 787 due to the route network.

They would move an entire fleet's worth of pilots to an already crewed up fleet during a downturn? Yeah right. You'd get binned out of seniority like the jumbo guys were but with a useless type rating. The CCQ is an in-house BA thing, the 350 is officially dual rated with the 330 only.

Personally, I'd avoid the 380. Plenty other fleets to choose from

busdriver01 has already beaten me to it above but - during the worst downturn for aviation we are ever going to see in our lifetimes (if WWIII broke out I think we’d have bigger problems to worry about than what fleet we’re on) - nobody was actually made redundant off the Jumbo or the 380 for that matter*. Granted in the case of the 747 there was a bit of Balpa involvement in that but the point still stands, the precedent has been set now. The conversion from 380 to 350 is about four sims and two line training trips (the latter of those being your check). It’s minimal to say the least. The 380 pilots are way safer than you believe as a result of that, the 380 guys were never even mentioned during the consultation period unlike Gatwick and the Jumbo.

On the other hand if you’re genuinely saying you’d prefer the bottom of the 777 list to an equivalent 380 seniority well words fail me. You’ve either not seen what junior tanker life is like (way better than any other fleet imho) or must not like time off or sleep. :)

Just have a play with iBid selecting P2 for 380 and 777 go to the bottom of the list and have a gander. Deselect the 777 FOs and watch all the gaps start appearing and then come back to me.

*(To come to think of it I tell a lie there were a couple gone from the 380 and the jumbo too I would have thought but done on pure seniority, not fleet)

Ability Testing
 

Hi folks !

Does anyone know if the SHL interactive ability tests are still being done at home before the interview / group assessment stage?

I have literally explained the whole process…one page back, one!! Honestly, I don’t get it….

Well, if only people understood that this is a privilege and not a God’s given right, they’d put the work and the respect to themselves and their chances, the employer they are applying to and the rest of us. But let’s go back to topic.

Wow!

I’ve read through every page, but it seems very recently (last month) it’s changed and now the capacity test is done on a separate day and perhaps the ability test has been dropped? Just after confirmation as this thread goes back to November 2022!

Sorry to offend you all - was just after up-to-date info, rather than wasting money on SHL to practice something I didn’t need !

There’s no offence mate, apologies if it came across as aggressive. It’s tiring, and it’s been repeatedly addressed, that’s all.
The capacity test you can practice at LPJ

Plastic787
Yes they were, and out of seniority: including losing out to new DEPs who had only done some ground school on the 'high efficiency fleets'.
So if you think seniority is going to protect you, it isn't. Being on the right fleet is.
​​​​​​​

Is someone able to clarify the leave entitlement. I’m aware it’s 3 weeks in winter 3 weeks in summer plus 6 golden days. I’m therefore assuming leave can only be taken in week/2 week blocks?

Is a leave week a full 7 days, Sat-Sat, Sun-Sun etc and if so can that block be requested to start on any day of the week? Assuming the leave week commences on a weekend is it safe to say you would have at least 12 weekends off a year based purely on your leave?

Thanks

Leave is usually Sat-Fri with either three wrap days off before a block or four wrap days off after a block. You get one of each type per leave season (winter and summer). If the leave block plus wraps is entirely within a month, you can slide the start day +/- 3 days when bidding for work. You can either bid for two weeks together or two separate weeks. Awarding of leave is done on a points system, not seniority.

Duty free weeks are Sun-Sat and have a non-assignable day off before them. I think the winter DFW is 8 days now.

You can choose to work in duty free weeks or wrap days but not leave (unless the company is desperate!)

Those pilots unlucky enough to have been binned off the 747 and 380 fleets were made redundant on seniority and seniority alone.

The safe seniority line did not move an inch as a result of the high efficiency fleets, it really is very simple and I can’t believe people are still getting tied up over this. The only thing that the high efficiency fleets thing did was protect certain low seniority pilots on the 787 and A350 but absolutely nobody was made redundant on other fleets as a result of this action who would have been safe otherwise.

Or would you rather have seen all those redundancies and all the relevant low seniority 787 and 350 pilots out of a job too? That’s nice.

Yes certain fleets were protected which is I guess the main thrust of your argument but let’s not pretend that the seniority of any pilot who was above the line was in any way infringed, it wasn’t.

To reiterate nobody with a seniority number on the safe side of the cut off point was then nevertheless made redundant as a consequence of their being on a “redundant fleet”. That was my point and it is still valid.

Regarding leave you can also bolt DFW to leave as well if it’s available. Friends of mine have taken unpaid leave after a block of leave before as well if getting away from it all is your thing.

Regarding JSS and rostering. I am only a year in but the last 3 months on SH fleet seems to have changed a lot. I’m getting at least 3 weekend days off a month and sometimes both Sat/Sunday if I get the reserve. With SH if you are a bit flexible swapping trips is a breeze at present. Getting head around bidding is hard work, once you found what works for you it’s much easier. Yes I often get a few trips I don’t want. Go into EOT or keep an eye out and swap if something drops in that I like.

Mates on triple are working so hard. Seen 5 trips a month sometimes. JFK x4 and a Lagos. Hard work especially landing 7am into LHR.
Definitely looking at all the rosters the A380 looks like the easiest fleet to me. Not much difference between most junior and senior on the fleet. Swapping within LH seems to be a lot harder from what my mates say but then they don’t have the faf of LHR which can completely fall over when a bit of weather hits the UK.

As others have said BA kind of ripped up the rule book during COVID. People that got 787, 350 Feb 2020 kept their jobs. I know guys who took 777 as waiting for a 787 course meant another month before you start and “seniority is everything at BA” got dumped by BA. They are back of course but it seems everyone is looking over their shoulders now and positioning themselves just incase.

Aptitude Test
 

How was the testing, as stated in the forum?