OpenSkies? Sell your soul

[biddedout]

Dave,

If BA say that they are to recognise BALPA in Open skies, then I assume it will have a Company Council just like the BACC and an appointed full time official. Their job will be to provide help and support for anyone who has a problem with their employer. I really don't understand what this so called ban has to do with the level of support that BALPA will provide. If, as you suggest, there will be no support provided, then why would BALPA seek recognition in OS?

If I were to apply to OS (which I am not) i would expect the same level of support to be provided by BALPA as i enjoyed last time I was a BA subsidiary employee and I am sure I would get it.

Just supposing three or four competent and preferably battle hardened reps were to emerge within OS. If they were to work with a top rate BALPA negotiator (there are one or two) and if OS had a high quality well trained management team in place, who truly undestood the concept of working together for the benefit of all, it could be possible to adapt these terms and conditions to create a good quality package which was well matched to the type of operation along with the pilots aspirations and with little or no exta cost to the company.

I know that given the right team BALPA could do it, but this would of course mean having a management team which didn't link competence to golfing ability and funny handshakes. An incentive scheme not driven by short term bonuses would also help.

Back to the drawing board then.

[watertheflowers]

Sell your soul?

There's a largish airline in the Middle East that started a DEC program around 4 years ago. Previously upgrades were made internally on seniority.

Happily all the BA retirees boycotted said airline.

Hang on! No they didn't!

Since then several hundred F/Os at that airline have been disadvantaged in perpetuity by the arrival of no small number of ex BA DECs (and others).

Open Skies? Bring it on.

Not that I'll be applying though.

[3Greens]

jesus christ Watertheflowers,

YOu have managed to miss the point completely haven't you.

I assume you are referring to Emirates...if so then as there isn't a union in EK then there couldn't have been a recruitment ban eh?
Instead of whinging on here about displaced Fo's how about you chanel your energy into getting union recognition at EK. then and only then can you use collective bargaining to negotiate with your employer. Otherwise i'm afraid they will do as they like...

BALPA aren't objecting to openskies, nor the pay, nor external pilot recruitment. What we want is PROTECTION so that if Openskies is the great success we ALL hope it is, we don't end up with a jetstar/Qantas situation.

I suggest before posting such accusations in future you at least get the facts right as it just makes you look a bit daft otherwise....

And what the hell have BA retirees got to do with anything...once they have left BA then they are free to take up a position of their choosing. As i have said above, i believe no recruitment ban was in place or i'm sure many would not have applied.

And one last thing...i see you object to command upgrades on a non-seniority basis; tell me what system they are using at openskies again?

[Dave Bloke]

biddedout,

If BA say that they are to recognise BALPA in Open skies, then I assume it will have a Company Council just like the BACC and an appointed full time official. Their job will be to provide help and support for anyone who has a problem with their employer.

Nearly.

If BA say that they are to recognise BALPA in Open skies, then I assume it will have a Company Council just like the BACC and an appointed full time official. Their job will be to provide help and support for any member who has a problem with their employer.

I may be wrong but I can't imagine there'll be too many members applying to Open Lies until the dispute has been sorted out one way or the other. Like I said, anyone who isn't a member should watch their back if they screw up.

As to the rest of your post, I agree with the sentiment. IMHO, the likelihood of there being a few "battle-hardened" reps at Open Lies is similar to the likelihood of Open Lies getting competent management.

As you say, a decent set of reps could potentially improve the T&Cs at Open Lies over time, which may start to make it an attractive proposition to more pilots. However, if they do this without being on the master seniority list, it risks driving down the T&Cs at mainline, which brings us back to the Qantas/Jetstar scenario which is exactly what we're trying to avoid.

Dave B

[watertheflowers]

In simple terms, 3Greens, you and your group are attempting by the best means available to you, to avoid the importation of the commercial practices that we in the Middle East and other parts of the world experience.

The problems we have in the Middle East are in a small part caused by people of your type exporting themselves to our area.

Maybe I should say 'best of luck', but it sticks in my throat a bit.

[Gypsy]

Well I'm afraid guy's I'm not convinced.

Coming back to a question I posed a couple of days ago - why is OS any different to GO?

Ans: -

1, GO provided a nice little job for retiring 55 years olds

2, GO didn't fly and n'stop anywhere nice like NY

Rather than a great moral crusade to defend the T's and C's of our industry this IMO is all motivated by self interest of a blinkered group of pilots who already have good jobs and want to ensure that they maintain themselves ahead of others.

As for talk about 'scabs' etc I thought I'd left all that behind in the playground 30 plus ago.

If BAPLA and BA pilots really want to improve T's and C's industry wide then a good start would be RYR, Jet 2, Globespan and others flying around with below par pay, meaningless pensions and nothing to eat - compare that with your 2 man b2b JFK - God give me strength

[3Greens]

Gypsy

For a start BA & BALPA would be pretty hard pressed to improve ts and Cs in companies that don't have union recognition.

As for GO i concede that at the time BALPA was rotten from the core with too many feathering their own nests to give a damn about line pilots. Outsourcing was new in BA at the time and too many "i'm alright Jack" pilots wouldn't have given the union a mandate to do anything. I believe these times have changed and the current BA company council are excellent and i have more faith in them than i've ever had in BALPA.

As for giving you strength, i'm afraid i can't do that; all i can say is that comapring multi-sector days for RYR and 2 man B2B's is comparing apples and oranges. I have done both (and still do on the 757/767) and both leave you tired abeit in a differant way. I personally find that SH just requires 1 good night kip to recover whereas a 2 man East coast requires a few days, more if it's a B2B. This is more akin to fatigue than tiredness.

And as for NY being a "nice " nightstop - it is excellent - that is if you are staying in Manhattan. Where is Openskies putting its crew up again? the BA owned hotel is full of mainline crew everynight so my guess is you will be staying in New Jersey or out on Long Island. Trust me on this, if you aren't in Manhattan then NY is a 5h1te nightstop. Oh, and as your cabin crew are NY based they won't be with you either so it's candlelit meals for 2.

[potkettleblack]

For many people starting out in the industry the likes of BA/Virgin et al, otherwise known as legacy airlines provided the opportunity of flying for a reputable, stable airline and the chance to fly some heavy metal. Go around any flying school and the majority of people will ogle at the big jets and hope one day to be at the controls. The chance of one day being at big airways would help people get over all those low paid long houred days in rusty old buckets held together with gaffer tape.

Open Skies and what it represents has the potential to completely ruin this industry once and for all. The chance to finally earn a decent living doing a job we all love will be gone. We didn't fork out a fortune and forgo time with our families to end up getting paid a pittance.

If you want to see where this could be heading just look to Asia and the ME. Cathay was once a great airline to work at. A scalers were the best paid in the world. Then they moved to the B scale. Still okay but not so good. Then C and its getting worse each year. Then there were DEC's hired and shafting of guys on seniority lists. The freighter fleet brought even more heart ache. Emirates were no better. All Willy is doing is copying the business model and I hope that BALPA can put an end to it for the sake of all of us.

[Hand Solo]

Originally Posted by watertheflowers

The problems we have in the Middle East are in a small part caused by people of your type exporting themselves to our area

As 3greens isn't a retiree it's hard to blame his type for your troubles. The question remains, what did you do to fight this imposition by your management? If the answer is sweet FA then it would be pretty feeble to wish hardship on others who have the balls and the organisation to resist the kind of management shafting you didn't. Sadly for some people 'sharing the misery' is a mantra.

Originally Posted by Gypsy

why is OS any different to GO?

GO was a small, low cost airline aimed at attracting budget travellers at a time that BA was actively distancing itself from that segment of the market and downsizing aircraft from B757s to A319s in order to minimize low yield seats on board the aircraft. GOs business plan was complementary to mainlines in that at the outset it exclusively targeted a market segment mainline did not want. When GO started to target premium travellers it was no longer considered a complementary business to mainline and was sold. Open Skies is exclusively targetting premium transatlantic business travellers, the core market of BA mainline, from the outset. That's the difference.

[Mick Stability]

I can't excuse the behaviour of BALPA during GO, CityFlier etc, but what I can say is that Chris Darke, the general secretary at the time, was summarily dumped, and replaced by Jim McAuslan, a man in a different galaxy when it comes to comparisons. The stalking horse candidate was a BA Captain who put his money where his mouth was when the demand for change became a clamour.

Secondly, the Chairman of the BACC at the time left BALPA to take up a management post - in charge of baggage as it happens. What followed was a rout, with a new BACC of a completely different agenda.

If BALPA could have been accused of a prochial view in the past, the current BACC has a far broader horizon, and a MUCH more commercially aware constituent. I suggest that if we had this BACC then, things would have turned out very differently indeed.

[Gypsy]

HS - GO was a small airline ????? I think they got up to 17 or more a/c - OS has one and is planning I think 6 by end 2009. I don't think I can see your point.

As much as BA pilots would like to think that any European capital to the USA in Premium class is their market, I'm afraid it isn't - thats the whole point about open skies agreements - competition.

3 Greens - I've also done longhaul 2 and 3 man crew both east and west, plus SH and Charter -they can all be tiring but there is a body of chaps who still see the chance to get off in another country with some beer vouchers as the best choice - my point is I don't think they'd be this fuss if OS was a SH operator. My feeling is that a lot of the noisest complainants would look down their noses and be happy to see such a SH version of OS recruit others on less pay and lower T's and C's. I take your point about NY n/stops if your assumptions about OS Hotac are correct - truth of the matter is that the n/stop isn't designed to give us a great little social life - nice when it happens but it doesn't feature high on the agenda in the office

[Saint Peter]

So tell me HS, more about these:

others who have the balls and the organisation to resist the kind of management shafting

Would that be the great BALPA cop-out?
Got it wrong again eh?
What an absolute waste of everyone's time - a period of silence from you would now be most appreciated!