Zalt,
You are right of course. It could have been predicted and I'm not sure how blind we have been, but historically (and I've been through this a few times now !!) we've always had a good idea that it was coming. Even walking into this meeting, none of us expected to be saying goodbye to our collegues there and then.
There was an announcement from the Unions last week, deliberately put out to press, but that just spoke about our obvious requirement to reduce numbers if we lost a major contract in a couple of years - No particular surprise there. With the imminent retirement bulge just about to kick-in, it looked as if natural erosion of pilot numbers would suffice. I guess we were wrong, but I think its the fact that no rumours had gotten through to us before hand that has put us into shock.
The pensions side of things was more predictable, and we've been through every possible option there. Just a few years left to hang on .................