Originally Posted by
Chugalug2
I too would question why British Airways seems to be the centre of interest here, especially when BALPA is quoted as being heavily involved. They draw their membership from all over the UK airlines together with the attendant subscriptions, so why all this talk of British Airways rather than British Airlines? We all know the old saw of it being the British Airways Line Pilots Association but it seems there may be some truth in that from what we are being told. Obviously those who have recently left the RAF to the join the airlines may be a more practical choice for the RAF to draw from, and perhaps the majority of them joined BA. I don't know if that is the case but if it is then the emphasis should be on those in that category and not on any particular airline.
As to State Aid, BA have had more of its share of that over the years not least from not being broken up into separate long haul and short haul companies when privatised to even out more the competition with the so called 'Independents'. There is also the near monopoly of the LHR Slots of course. The combination of those two silver spoons meant that for years contractions in the industry meant that Independent pilots lost their jobs while BA ones kept theirs. Is this scheme designed to continue that process and if so, why?
Can we take it as read that when the Daily Mail is quoted a standard apology is implicit in that? I grow tired of seeing it repeated ad nauseum here...
Christ on a bike, quit the bloody conspiracy bull****. The reason it is BA mentioned is because this initiative started with the BACC not with Big BALPA, ie BA pilots came up with the idea and made the approach to the MOD to test if this was even possible. It is highly unlikely that this initiative will be restricted to just BA pilots, but the right to return to BA and to maintain seniority within BA is a BACC negotiated thing with BA and will not apply to other companies who will have to negotiate with their own companies. It is at the very first tentative steps and is by no means a done deal. Why don’t we wait and see if anything comes of it before jumping in with our size 12s, ranting about stuff that isn’t decided, or true, but that fits our own prejudices. It’s almost as if you want to see fellow aviators out of a job.