Corelli - I'm afraid you've confused me with someone completely different old chap, my names not Kevin. I may not be part of BACX, but I know and am in regular contact with a lot of people who are. The only time I misquote anything on here is when it doesn't match up with what your BA appointed managers are telling you for their own benefit. Also, there is no mainline surplus of pilots, recruitment is almost inevitable in the next 18 months. Those were places that could have been filled directly by CX pilots if their company council had not turned down the opportunity. Quite who will be approaching the courts on your behalf? It won't be the BA managers in BACX. If its your company council they'd have to explain why they are unhappy with a grant of 100+ jobs and 16 aircraft to BACX, and why they turned down a deal which would resolve the redundancy issues. Hardly a convincing case.
EICAS-GP - Yes that compliment did come as a surprise, but I thank you for it anyway.
On the subject of BALPA membership, it seems to me that you are putting the cart before the horse. Your defence of low BALPA membership is that BALPA didn't do anything to help you, which is of course not enough of you are in BALPA. You can't ask an insurance company to pay out for your car on the promise that you'll take out a policy with them afterwards, the same is true of BALPA.
My understanding of the secondment arrangements are that BACC seek a proportion of
new commands. Clearly this differs from your understanding, with implications for the positions vacated by retiring Captains and the consequences of a failure to renew the contract for the third aircraft. As neither of us can be certain which interpretation is correct then any further discussion on those subjects just becomes wild speculation which helps neither of us, so I'll refrain from that.
I've no doubt BACCs goal is all commands at GSS, which would tie in with their long term goal of all BA passenger and cargo work being done by BA pilots. As a BA pilot I fully endorse that long term goal, but what is ideal and what is realistically achievable are very different beasts and I doubt either goal will be achieved any time soon.
Maximuss - you wrote
One genuinely looks forward to reading the howls of outrage when the cold winds of economic reality finally affect the BA mainline pilot community.
I'm sorry, did I miss Foot and Mouth, 9/11, SARS, shoe-bombers, missile attacks, recession, a war, massive security costs, LHR congestion, low cost carriers, price wars, subsidies for competitors, wildcat strikes and a whole host of other financial catastrophes for the airline?
Avius - I don't know which country you are based in, but in the UK you can make just about any contract you want legally binding provided it is reasonably fair to both parties. BA can quite legitimately include a stipulation in the contract for a third freighter that they wish it to be partly crewed by BA pilots. It's no different to any outsourcing contract in any other industry which stipulates the contractor will use certain staff requested by the customer. Incidentally if it wasn't for the mighty BALPA then the GSS work would still be being flown by Americans using Atlas freighters.