Originally Posted by
NoelEvans
Will the IPA send a 'pilot care' representative to see you in hospital after any serious incident and ensure that the media are kept off your back? I knew one of those BALPA (volunteer) representatives who did exactly that in two totally different incidents (and it was his examples that convinced me to join BALPA). Will the IPA arrange to have the local Pilot Association abroad have their legal team arrive at the police station to have you released from having to make a police statement directly following a major accident in another country that does not have the same air accident protocols that we have? That local Pilot Association arranged for those British pilots to be able to return to Britain before returning to provide their accident statement, with Pilot Association representation this time, a week later. (We were given full details of all of that aspect of that accident, that happened with another airline, at one of our monthly company council meetings -- the first time BALPA heard of the incident was when the foreign Pilot Association contacted BALPA saying that there had just been an incident involving a G-reg airliner and did any BALPA members need assistance? That was pre-mobile phone regular use and the incident had not yet been reported in the news.) We had a significant runway excursion incident in this country in our airline and the BALPA 'accident' rep was with the two pilots involved, both members, within a few of hours. (We also got all the details on that at our next company council meeting. I know both pilots involved.) Would the IPA have provided that assistance?
In one of those incidents that I have mentioned above, one of the pilots involved became known by name with the media on his back throughout while the other pilot's name is unknown even to many people who know a lot about that famous incident: one was not a BALPA member and used to scorn BALPA membership, the other was a BALPA member. It should b obvious which one is well known and which one is virtually 'unknown'! (That case, that I heard of first-hand from the BALPA 'rep' who had been directly involved on the very night of the incident, was what convinced me to join BALPA quite some time before I joined an airline.)
Also, Tim Lancaster, in his subsequent article on his incident in the BALPA Log, thanked BALPA for keeping the media off him and his family following the incident. Have that happen without being a member and you have to deal with the paparazzi on you doorstep every day.
Any one of those incidents that I have mentioned will make your entire career's BALPA subs well worth it. So, no "the IPA will NOT do everything BALPA does". Especially, as I have detailed above, when it really, really matters.
Just join BALPA!!
I neither know nor care. And when I
was in BALPA I neither knew nor cared then either. And the poor unfortunate subjects of your stories probably didn't either. Why don't you give the IPA a bell and ask?