Thanks for the insight!

Unfortunately, in this industry, the choice seems to be interesting work (long haul), but no life or not very interesting work (short haul) but more life. I guess if you're young, free and single it might be ok but for guys like me with a family, I just can't make this work.

As you said it depends what you want . For me I have done the LH and got completely sick of it . Now I want to do SH in a nice small regional base with good pay and see my family every night , probably go part time . People make this job there life ,

Hi all,

Is there anyone that can provide an up-to-date list of routes on each LH fleet? Or point me in the direction of where to find it?

TIA

This might sound flippant, but unless you want a forensically detailed list it shoukd give you a good idea.

Flight Radar 24.

Filter by BA,and the fleet you're interested in, then have a look at what's airborne & where it's going to / coming from. Probably the easiest way of finding what you're after.

You can also see the aircraft type for flights on BA.com if there are particular destinations you are interested in. I can tell you Summer on 380 looks like SIN, JNB, LAX, SFO, DFW, MIA, BOS and sometimes IAD.

Great gen, thank you. So am I right in thinking short haul year one expect roughly £7000 gross all in? Or is the flying pay less due to fewer block hours?

Video interview
 

Hi Folks,

Great info here. I appreciate the typical roster breakdown, fleet pros and cons, and salary info. I have put in an application for DEP LH and have been invited to the video assessment stage. I have seen a few previous posts with some brief info on questions asked, but most seem SH-specific; if anyone has any more details on the Long Haul questions to expect and the general format of this stage, I would very much appreciate it. DM works too.

I imagine I can expect 3 questions?
- Why BA
- Challenges facing company
- What will I bring?

Is there a possibility to open the link and have a look at the questions before I start recording or is there no going back?

Cheers!

There is no going back but you get as much time as you need to prepare an answer and then two attempts at filming an answer. It’s not tricky.

I'd say 7k gross average is pretty reasonable estimate for Y1 direct entry pilot short haul. Flying pay is the same and block hours will be the same too. Only thing that's less in SH at Y1 is the allowances as you're not away as many hours.

Ta very muckle

You could probably end up netting this figure if you did some overtime each month especially if they’re offering “premium rate” and you pick up a long day out like larnaca, Athens or Istanbul. Purely optional of course but one of those on an enhanced overtime payment could bag you circa £800 or more as an FO….not bad for an easy day out.

Appreciate overtime isn’t for everyone, but nice to have the option to earn a bit more if you want to - and can!

I am a day tripper and £7.5k was gross. Going to be closer to £8k I reckon now with higher hourly flight pay. See after a few months.

Overtime there if you’re keen. I had a few of 5 figure months even on SH

Are there tax breaks for night stops out of the UK?

Yes, you automatically get taxed less via PAYE if you’re out of the UK overnight while working.

Wondered if anyone could explain what part time contracts there are available, the process to get onto these and if possible some sort of realistic timescale you could expect to get onto a part time contract. Also if you then bid to transfer fleet/seat etc in the future do you have to go back onto full time?

Can you elaborate on this?
Thanks

There are two kinds of part time contract. The first is aspirational and is things like one month on one month off, or two months on one month off. In your month off you do one trip in order to maintain recency. This kind of part time is done on seniority and you can apply each year. However it seems to very rarely be granted. The second kind is right to request. This is 75% or 50% and is three weeks on one week off, or two weeks on two weeks off. I think there is also an option for 87.5% which is 7 weeks on one week off. RTR part time is much easier to get hold of, and can be requested at any point. It is budget dependent though, and this varies. When I went part time about five years ago, it was about a 6 month wait. RTR is not seniority based. You are asked a couple of questions on your application and it is granted based on your answers and the remaining budget.

(Actually the 87.5% might not be a RTR option. I think it is the compromise option if you have applied for aspirational part time for two years in a row and not been granted it.)

I went 75% after 1 year and 50% around 5 years very straight forward process and BA were great throughout.

Hi, is anyone able to say how common day trips are for newbie junior FOs at LHR? Are day trips mainly swept up by senior bidders? If so, how far up the relative seniority list would you need to be to start to achieve day trips (and preferably those day trips on weekdays)

thanks!

It’s a bit of a an oversimplification, but on the whole day trips are low seniority for FOs, high seniority for CPs.

5 day trips are universally fairly high seniority as commuters like them and there are plenty of those on both fleets.