Originally Posted by White Van Driver (Post 11585362)

It might be a good idea here to just give potential joiners a quick rundown of our rostering system, JSS.

Each month the company lists all the trips for a full month. P777 its normally around 1500 or so trips to be shared among the 600ish copilots on the fleet. We then have a few days to put together our bids. This is currently happening now, for March rosters.

You can make up to 15 "bid groups".
In each bid group you have 7 buckets to fill with the trips, using a sequence of commands. Ultimately you can differentiate between the trips however you like... Mondays, report after 11.45am, Caribbean, BA283 on Wednesday, long layovers in Mauritius, anything you like right down to a certain flight number on a certain date.
The 7 buckets range from what JSS will try to give you lots of if it can, down to what it will try to avoid giving you, if it can. You can leave any trips you really dont want outside by not putting them in any bucket at all, and JSS won't even look at those trips for you.
But if it doesn't have enough work to build you a roster, that Bid Group will fail and it'll move onto the next Bid Group.

After it has made a roster for everyone, if it has too many leftover trips, JSS will open up rosters from the bottom up to squeeze more trips onto your month. It'll still try to give you what you've asked for but really all bets are off. This is called Global Constraints and has recently gone all the way to the top of the list causing much frustration.

On a practical level, i find as junior P777 i can't get any particular day off im after, but if i give it 20 destinations i like, it might give me one or two from that list. The rest will be from the lower buckets.

For March, I've tried to get a certain Wed/Thu off for childcare. Then I've tried to get the following weekend off. Then ive tried to avoid JKF EWR ORD. Then I've listed 23 places I like in the top 3 buckets (of approx 45 destinations on the fleet). I'll update here the result if anyone's interested.

Apologies if this post is seen as a bit off piste. But bidding and rostering is such a big part of life at BA I think it probably warrants a discussion...

Originally Posted by iFunFlyer (Post 11707592)

Interested in this.

How did it turn out to be? Are you able to get a certain 2 or 3 days off in a row that you want? Even if it’s not weekends.

Originally Posted by White Van Driver (Post 11707634)

Looking back at that roster- I was successful in getting the Wed/Thu off I needed. However I didn't get the weekend off. In fact I didn't get any weekend off!

I got just one trip from my top 23 destinations. But I successfully avoided JFK ORD EWR.

I ended up swapping two of the trips to awesome places, and had a great time on every single trip.

Originally Posted by iFunFlyer (Post 11707702)

Sounds positive. What’s your seniority like on the fleet?

Originally Posted by NotSoSmart (Post 11707545)

*not a BA employee*

Somebody told me they were "seconding" LHR 320 skippers down to LGW/EF for a few months at a time. Any substance to that? I didn't believe it personally.

Originally Posted by NotSoSmart (Post 11707545)

*not a BA employee*

Somebody told me they were "seconding" LHR 320 skippers down to LGW/EF for a few months at a time. Any substance to that? I didn't believe it personally.

Originally Posted by TheSouthFace (Post 11710234)

Evening,

I am currently considering the move to join direct entry LH.
Does anyone have any experience of the time frame required to get a part time option?
It would require commuting on a short flight for each trip therefore not achievable on a full time 777 roster for a prolonged period.

Many thanks

Originally Posted by hunterboy (Post 11710428)

Do bear in mind the commute on BA isn’t free….

Originally Posted by hunterboy (Post 11710428)

Do bear in mind the commute on BA isn’t free….

Originally Posted by 100pgnc (Post 11710479)

I thought you could travel standby for free?

Originally Posted by cheff92 (Post 11710475)

Hello everyone,

sorry if the topic has been discussed.
Has any non UK citizen have experience on how it works applying outside the UK and get a working visa?
Is it possible as EU member? Does BA help you at the moment?
Thank you

Originally Posted by cheff92 (Post 11710475)

Hello everyone,

sorry if the topic has been discussed.
Has any non UK citizen have experience on how it works applying outside the UK and get a working visa?
Is it possible as EU member? Does BA help you at the moment?
Thank you

Originally Posted by The Foss (Post 11710654)

BA have said they’re willing to arrange working visas (believe EU/non-EU doesn’t really make a difference post-brexit) however I haven’t actually seen or heard of anyone who’s gone through the process yet - may be as it’s a recent change and it likely takes longer.

So yes it should be possible, but I believe you have to be in the process of converting your licence to UK CAA (if you don’t already hold one).

Lifted from job description below:
hold a current UK issued CAA ATPL(A) Flight Crew Licence with Class 1 medical or have already initiated the process to convert licence to a UK issued CAA ATPL(A) and will have before joining

Originally Posted by RexBanner (Post 11488487)

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.