Can you work for British Airways as cabin crew or pilots if you're based out of YYZ -Toronto-Pearson?

Question

Thanks for your answer. Can you commute to LHR?

Answer 1

As of right now Brisitsh Airways is not hiring for any posistion in Canada. so, no you wouldn't sorry. Try Air Canada, or start off with Jazz. Or you could try an airline out of the U.S. that flies to Canada. However, to get back to the question, BA is not hiring in Canada, never mind just Toronto.

Cheers!

Answer 2

Theoretically, airline crews can live where ever and commute to their main base. For example, there are Air Canada pilots who live in the Southern US that commute to their Toronto base.

However, living in YYZ but having your base in LHR would be difficult as their are a number of factors that would make it essentially unworkable.

First is your eligiblity to work for BA but live in Canada. Citizenship and tax issues would be a big barrier. Not impossible, but you'd have to have the right to live in Canada and work in the UK. I'm not sure how exactly that would work.

Next, depending on your seniority, there's a good chance during your first few years you'd have a number of days where you were on reserve. Each airline is slightly different, but you have to be able to make it to the airport within a certain amount of time (usually a couple of hours) - that would be hard to do living in Toronto. You'd basically have to get a second apartment in London - which isn't cheap!

Finally, you get the practical concerns. London is 5 or 6 hours time difference than Toronto and most of the flights from YYZ to LHR are overnight flights. Switching time zones so quickly would be hard on your system. You'd have to give yourself a day in between each commute in case you got bumped and to re-adjust to the time. In all likelihood you'd spend most of your time commuting and being exceptionally tired.

That being said, I do not have first hand knowledge of any BA crew living in Toronto, but I suppose it may be possible. A good place to check would be http://www.pprune.org - this is a British based aviation message board. There are a number of BA crew that post on there and they might have a better idea of where the BA crew commute from.

Cheers,

James Ball

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Answer 3

I doubt it, CYYZ is not a BA hub.

Answer 4

If you have the legal right to work in the UK, I don't see why not.

However, its up to you to make sure you actually get to work on time.  Airlines don't take kindly to pilots who don't show up to work because they're on the wrong continent.