Hi, can anyone that has passed the recruitment process back end of last year/ early this year/ anyone on the inside of BA shed any light on how long we’re expected to wait in the holdpool currently?

Lady Speedbird,

Yes I was. Unfortunately I’ve missed that boat now. If my current sim wasn’t so damn expensive to hire (long range business jet) I would just convert now by doing a UK ATPL skills test. That’s all I need. Unfortunately my pockets aren’t that deep.

I wonder if I could just go to an ATO and get a basic me-ir back at a flying school.

Did you get any response to this? I am also interested!

It’s all in here buddy, nobody is replying to these requests because you need to do the homework, it has been shared several times in detail. So 42 pages of it and search function button. Good luck 😉

Completely endorse that.Some time ago on the previous BA thread,I read through 196 pages,making notes.
It paid off.

Hi! has anyone been offered a position as a EU national? How does the visa sponsorship (if that's a thing) work?

If you can't be bothered to look through this thread for generic advice, you're going to have a bad time at BA.

Hi what's the deal with 'reserve' (month?) at BA - notice periods, are you on continuous standby, do you just get the weekly rest etc
Thanks

On SH a reserve block is 6 days long with two fixed days off before and one after. Expect to be contactable up to 8pm the day before and either be assigned a trip, home standby or airport standby. Some periods can be very quiet some you can work every day. In practice, things are generally assigned earlier than 8pm and rarely changed. It is also possible to have a preference for certain length of trips or more standby etc. Not always granted but seems to work ok when it's quiet.

LH reserve periods are 10 days long with four fixed days of either at the beginning or the end. Only difference is that there is no airport standby on LH.

Interesting, thanks for the information. So for a commuter that is less than 1 hour flight away how would this generally work? (not very well I assume) If it is generally 8pm the night before then you could stay at your home and get the last flight to London (which there are a lot). How late can they call you for a flight the next day? Or is it possible to call on the same day?

It's not designed for commuters, so you have to plan on being near Heathrow for the full duration of the reserve block, that's the official answer. Anything else would be questionable.

Air Commuters should plan on being within the vicinity of heathrow, both the night before standby starts, and on the day of any HSB. You can be called up until 8pm for an early start the following day. There have been audits in the past where commuters have flown in on the last flight, and BA have deemed they have had insufficient rest. Disciplinary action has been taken, and in some cases, where long haul commuters have flown in on the day of a flight, their contract has been terminated. Be warned!
As a DEP long haul pilot you should probably plan on a 10day standby block every 3-4 months

Thanks for the warning. I am not trying to navigate FTLs and operate illegally, only to figure out how it works and what a normal example is. Thank you for the information on the 10 day standby block, I am assuming that reserve and HSB are different and operate on different FTLs anyway. Any other information about rosters that you think is pertinent is always welcome thanks.

A reserve duty assignment must be notified by 8pm the day before. They CAN change it till 8pm the night before but it is generally pretty stable 2 days out.
A duty can include a flight, day off, home standby (2hr callout) or airport standby (SH only).
I think you'll do one every other month as junior LH (i certainly did last year!). Susceptibility to being assigned reserve is "banded" meaning pilots get double or triple points with more years in the company. But anyone can bid for reserve which can be a useful way of getting a few particular days off.

Again thanks for the information, how would a reserve block work towards the cap of hours needed per month? What happens in the 10 days if you get days off and stbys? Would that mean you need to make it up the following month or does it just magically end up working out through the system in the end? It also sounds like experience in the system is going to be the main way to understand how it works.

Each day of the reserve block is given a notional credit for CAP calculation purposes during roster building. Your actual duties will attract the correct credit for the trip or standby duty and the company cannot exceed a total credit for that reserve block without paying you NCP. The figures vary slightly between SH and LH.

In other words, you don’t need to ‘make up’ work if you have a quiet reserve. You’ll just receive slightly less in flying pay and allowances as you won’t have flown much but your basic pay will be unaffected.

champair has described it well - I'll just add that the reserve block credit is exactly Cap/days in the month down to the minute.
So if cap=90hrs in April, the reserve block gets 90/30=3hrs per day. The block is 14 days (4 fixed days off and 10 reserve available days) so the whole reserve is worth 42hrs of credit on my example.

As a commuting junior FO on LH with those standby periods, is it still reasonable to expect that it is possible to spend less than 183 days a year in the country for tax purposes ?

Would it make a difference? I'd have thought as a PAYE employee, your tax is deducted at source, regardless of where you were?

It may make a difference as to whether you are considered resident in the UK tax purposes or not, and as a result exactly how much gets taken by the UK authorities through PAYE.