bhdcommuter

Hi zafiragirl, I have commuted from BHD since starting on MF over 4 years ago and never had a problem and there are plenty of crew that do commute from "up the road" in GLA and EDI. We also have commuters from BCN, AMS and some from SOF, BUD and there is one lady that commutes from JFK. You get access to staff travel - standby tickets after 6 months however, you have access to hotlines which are discounted tickets from DOJ. To give you an idea I can normally get a return flight between BHD and LHR for around £96, this ticket is changeable on the day free of charge (great if you are delayed coming back to LHR) and you collect Avois and more than likely she would get her silver card; purely from commuting (the 50 sectors) so can use the lounge, fast track security etc. Using Avois I can also get reward flights from as little as £17.50 and 4500 Avois, if I am travelling mid-week.

The main problem with commuting is getting loads of there and back day trips or early starts/late finishes which require hotel stays around LHR. Most hotels offer crew rates (some as low as £25 per night) and there are crew houses. When commuting you need to be organised, especially if using staff travel and need to have back-up’s in place as it’s your responsibility to be in work on time and Rested for the duty. We do bid for work on MF so you can request certain trips or trip patterns/start times etc.

Regarding salary it starts at £14,000 for a new entrant, however that is your basic, paid before you take a flight. You can earn up to another £700-£1000 per month on top of your basic via flight pay. This is a per hour rate paid from when we check in at LHR until we swipe back out on landing. Longer trips on the most part = better pay, however sometimes you can earn more money doing a 3 day short haul “Euro Tour” (eg day 1 LHR-CPH stay in CPH overnight day 2 CPH-LHR-OSL stay overnight in OSL day 3 OSL-LHR) than a 3 day East Coast USA trip. Furthermore the basic salary will increase after probation, and further increases if your daughter where to become Qualified or World Class crew.

Commuting suits me, for other people they find the commute too much and end up living around LHR with other crew which doesn’t appeal to me at all. I could write pages on commuting, however I hope the above is useful at this stage.

Best of luck to your daughter.