BA and the seniority bidding for leave, Christmas and the school holidays: how a new joiner actually gets time off in the first three years

BA Gatwick, and the leave question comes up from every new joiner in October when the Christmas bids open. Here is how leave and the high demand periods actually work at BA for someone at the bottom of the list, and how to get what you can.

The system

Annual leave is bid for in blocks through the crew system, with awards made in seniority order within your fleet and base. The high demand periods (Christmas and New Year, Easter, the school summer holidays, the half terms) are where seniority bites: senior crew bid for them and get them, and junior crew get what is left.

What a new joiner actually gets

In year one, almost certainly not Christmas Day off unless you bid for a block that nobody wants around it. Easter is possible. The school summer holidays: a week in late August is realistic, the first week of August is not. Half terms: sometimes. It sounds grim. It is the same at every seniority airline and it improves every year as people above you retire, transfer or leave.

How to get more than the list gives you

Bid for the edges: the days either side of the peak rather than the peak itself. Bid for the unpopular combination: Christmas Day working with a block off from the 27th, which senior crew avoid. Use the swap system: crew swap trips and days off constantly and a junior who is flexible can trade into a day that matters. Work Christmas in year one and two and use the goodwill and the record for year three. And bid early, always, because late bids get nothing.

Parents and carers

The bidding is the same, but the fixed pattern and part time arrangements exist and the flexible working request route is real for people with children. It does not jump the seniority list; it changes the shape of what you bid for.

The other side

The crew who complain most about leave are the ones who bid for the peak every time and lose every time. The crew who are content are the ones who worked out in year one that a Christmas in Cape Town on a long haul is a perfectly good Christmas and that the family will do the dinner on the 28th. My family have done it on the 28th for four years and my mother now says it is easier.

Honest timeline

Year one: nothing you want. Year two: some of it. Year three: the edges of the peaks. Year five: a school holiday week of your choosing. Year eight: Christmas Day. That is the BA long haul reality and it is why the people who stay are the ones who made peace with it early.