Flying Pay Cut

[Mr-Burns]

Just had the dreaded 50% Flying Pay cut......... does that mean that I now only need to be half as healthy and have bi-annual medicals? (thats every two years and not 2 per year for all you movers out there)

[Wensleydale]

You should now have just half the incentive for retention in the service perhaps?

[Gnd]

Glad to see you are doing your job for the good of others and not the 'retention' pay, similar to the brown things in the sand!

[Farfrompuken]

It's not retention pay.

Otherwise all those in their last year prior to their 34/38/40 point having not been assimilated to PA/Promoted or just taking their option would lose their Fg Pay as they're not being retained.

No, it's a cynical way to save money whilst at the same time employing scare tactics to exert control over the employees.

[orca]

FFP,

Great point, hadn't thought of that - although I was aware the AFPRB had argued against the measure. Proof of the pudding for me is that the reduction came about due to financial pressures - not retention issues. Also Air Cdre/ Cdre RN appointments can still attract flying pay - are we really arguing that they are retained by their £12.12 a day?

An incoherent argument in the extreme.

With all the draw downs are there many examples of guys doing two years (or more:sad:) on the reserve band because there are simply no jobs available that would qualify for flying pay?

[MG]

Genuine question then: what is flying pay for?

By the way, it's 'biennial' for every other year.

[5 Forward 6 Back]

I'd like to know what the MoD formally thinks flying pay is for. One interpretation is that it's for specialist skills; as a pilot, I have a set of skills, learned and honed over year and years of flying, that with the best will in the world an admin officer doesn't have. These skills are in demand in other areas where they'd attract a certain salary, so I'm paid a bit more because of them.

I'm sure the MoD though, say it's for "recruitment and retention." Recruitment because it means after 10+ years of military flying I'm not as heavily disadvantaged versus 10+ years of civilian flying as I might have been, so military flying still seems like a viable option. Retention because as soon as you crack 2000 hours and that ATPL become a valuable asset, you're not immediately guaranteeing a 300% pay rise to leap to the civil sector, and there's a chance you might prefer to stay where you are.

However, the 2 options don't seem to work when you look at when the MoD will take it away. If it's retention pay, and you give me an awful ground job that I don't want to do, and yet I still stay in, you've retained me. My skills are still there, ready for the MoD to deploy to whatever role they see fit whenever they like. So why do I get a 50% cut followed by a 100% cut after a couple of years?

If it's for specialist skills and I PVR, if you expect me to provide those specialist skills for another year, why do I get a 100% cut?

[VinRouge]

Twice the incentive to go wibble at the docs and delete the whole stations work on MOSS surely?

[12 twists per inch]

So the extra pay is for specialist skills? Very well but trust me that aircrew are not the only trade to have skills that if you leave to a comparative job in the real world can treble your wages. Just take off your blinkers and see there are a lot of very specialised and skilled people across the board who do not fly or get any specialist pay. Get over your self.

[Mr-Burns]

Heard some colleagues discussing this post (little did they know it was me who started it .........) and they were saying, coincidentally, that aircrew in non flying roles will soon only have to have medicals every 2 years anyway. Anybody heard anything about this. Would be interesting to take a survey on how many people in non flying roles are medically current.

PS ........ can you drift your own thread??? :)

[Whenurhappy]

One of the unintended consequences of the tapering of FP on 'non-flying related' posts is the loss of Sqn Ldr and Wg Cdr 'any branch' jobs. I had three consecutive 'any branch' posts (2 SO2, 1 SO1) that were very, very interesting and 2 were very operationally related, giving a ground branch officer some very useful and career-broadening experience.

It seems that these jobs now have 'flying related' annotations, and the suspicion is that this is about finding places were GD officers can retain FP (which I don't mind) but this is resulting in greater stove-piping of non-GD offices. The nett effect of this (set against Project Sirius) is that there will be very few non-aircrew above Gp Capt, as they will not seem to be competitive due to the lack of Joint and MB experience.

Recently, a good friend of mine - a Pers Branch officer - was selected in competition for a diplomatic post in the ME. He was extremely well qualified and suited for the position, but he was rejected by the FCO rep in the country as he didn't have 'wings' - even though the post had nothing directly to do about flying or ops. This mate has now PVRd, I believe.

[Lima Juliet]

WhenUrHappy

Sadly, the FCO man was probably right to insist. A lot of ME countries are very elitist about wings - if you're not aircrew they will hardly engage with you on some issues. I've seen guys go to meetings in short sleeve dress (without wings) on one day and be almost completely blanked - only to go back the next with brevets on and get welcomed like a long lost brother (with words like "we didn't realise you were aircrew").

So I guess there are 2 choices - either give out wings to everyone like the US do or give these types of jobs to aircrew only...

LJ

[ICBM]

Fair to say this is an emotive subject and 12 Twist's post, though completely antagonistic, shows how emotive it can really get.

I agree that the stated reason for 'Flying Pay' does not marry up with the way in which it is administered. That is wrong. The point I'd make is that if flying pay IS a stated retention incentive in order to keep enough high-calibre, expensively-trained personnel on the RAF's books then it should be paid for as long as the RAF want to retain said person(s). Once a recipient decides to PVR for whatever reason, flying pay is no longer a retention incentive in that person's eyes and should be removed. If it is hurting people financially to make this move then perhaps they should reconsider or just bite the bullet if their reasons for leaving are that compelling.

It costs a few million to train a pilot or navigator to fly the hardware on the RAF's front line. FP is a relative pittance to assure the investor that they will stay for long enough to amortise the training cost while retaining enough of a fighting capability.

[VinRouge]

Be interesting to see what the retention incentive of PA will be post 2015. By my calcs using ba and virgin pay scales and pensionable rights off BALPA, there is a pretty significant shortfall in accrued pay and benefits over the 23 years to 55, this is assuming rather hopefully that the ipp is simply shifted to 43 and pension paid out from 55. It also assumes you can get a gratuity in line with current accrual and you can secure 4% on it through paying off a lump sum off the mortgage.

Future stonking FRI? I hope so but doubt it would work for those doing the sums if it accounts for anything less than 100k Net! The actual figure you lose by staying in is closer to double this and it doesnt include per diem and other down route cash in hand benefits you would expect when working for a first rate company!

[orca]

ICBM,

I don't disagree with your logic, but why pay anyone FP at all, for the last one gusting two years of their commission - are they really going to leave then?

I would argue that the answer is no. The pension is retaining them, so zero FP would be....struggling for the word....correct(?). Someone leaving, is someone leaving, PVR or not.

Equally - PA spine who PVR...removed from PA spine?

I would struggle, myself, to take a significant pay cut and still offer the military the service it currently gets. Shamefully, maybe, but if the military cut my FP it would probably find that I started to forget the subject matter, stammered a lot in meetings and referred to Janes whenever anyone asked me a question.

[muttywhitedog]

Just had the dreaded 50% Flying Pay cut......... does that mean that I now only need to be half as healthy and have bi-annual medicals?

Just out of interest...

How much have you received over the past 2 years for not flying, and how much will you receive over the next 12 months for not flying?

[Chinny Crewman]

Mutty I can't answer your question however you might be interested to know....

A friend of mine at work who has just PVR'd will not be getting any flying pay for the next 12 months and he will be flying lots including several weeks in the sandpit.

[Hueymeister]

Didn't think you could be sent OOA whilst on PVR?

[Stuff]

If you got the OOA notification before you PVR'd then you are still liable for it.

[5 Forward 6 Back]

ICBM nails it, I think. It's there to retain people who've cost you £6M+ to train, and have spent goodness knows how many £XM training since, and whose replacements would not only cost £6M+ to train but would take 5+ years to be ready; and that's without putting a price on the interim years of operational experience. Therefore, if they PVR, they haven't been retained, so take it off them immediately. That seems like a "fair" system. But if you've retained them, don't look for any excuse to screw them out of it!

The side effect of that would mean capable officers wouldn't be afraid of doing what whenurhappy stated, and looking at out-of-branch roles. I and many of my peers would love to be able to broaden ourselves as officers by taking a couple of years outside of flying to do something totally different, but there's simply no way I'd take the risk when it'd involve a loss of almost 25% of my salary. That and the chances of getting back to flying are relatively slim, so it'd be a permanent loss; yet they've still retained me, and I still have all those skills, and all that knowledge....