Calum

I know someone who'll be every happy to see YVR and DEN back on their bidding lists.

Down Low

There were changes to the gatwick cabin crew crew contracts and structure last November. They are now all on a mixed fleet style contract. No more Cabin Managers or Pursers.

Grande Annee

Ah ok, thanks

Down Low

The rumour mill is already in overdrive that Mixed Fleet will do Santiago- the longest flight on the BA network - as night stop.

rossmacd

That is pretty rough!

Can I help you

Why is it rough?

rossmacd

I suppose looking at the flight times, it is not as brutal as I first expected. Landing at 09:40 day 1, then depart 18:45 on day 2. I doubt WW would like this.

corporate-wage-slave

There's more to it than that, since the service is only 4 days a week, and so only the Tuesday flight, which arrives SCL Wednesday morning, could lead to a Thursday evening out from SCL. The other flights give at least 2 nights.

Can I help you

They wouldn't leave until at least day 3 but with the schedule the trips will be longer, I can see it being a populate trip.

londonba2014

Thanks for sharing this. Interesting to see there have been no changes with EF or have these not been announced yet?

TCX69

Deleted.

BA or bust

^ A big reason for flying BA IMO. You only have to hear how calm and professional the pilot was on the BA2276 incident to understand that in an emergency you want a BA trained man or woman in the hot seat.

They can be as friendly or as grumpy as they wish the rest of the time IMO.

KARFA

Just to it the other side of this, there are plenty of other airlines who have very competent and professional pilots, and examples of excellent handling in emergencies. One example is US carriers like AA - their pilots can often come across as surely but due to the way the career system works there all of them have pretty much had to fight their way up from small regional airlines up to a main carrier often taking 10-20 years just to get in to the right hand seat.

Compare that to any European airline (not just BA) where you can get first officers who are in their early 20s fresh out of flight school having done their fATPL with no prior flying experience and less than a few hundred hours of flying the Airbus.

Keeping all this in mind now tell me who you want as your pilots when trouble happens?

Of course it is a much more complex picture than that and there are so many factors which come in to play for the competency of a pilot, but being friendly on the PA is not necessarily an indication either way. BA don't have a monopoly on good pilots - although their training is supposed to be pretty good so hopefully they are in the top league.

Globaliser

To add to the complexity of the picture, don't forget the possibility that some of those who've grown up during lengthy flying for small regional airlines haven't always acquired (or brought with them) the best flying habits.

KARFA

Absolutely. I was just sitting here after posting thinking about the number of accidents which have happened at small US regional airlines which have been down to pilot error. Perhaps it is good they have lots of expereince, but as you say if that experience is not good quality and bad habits have been learnt it can be a negative. I believe this is one reason a number of European airlines actually don't want cadets with lots of prior experience since they would have to potentially try and unteach all the bad habits before teaching the good ones.