First Choice Airways has just woken up to the fact that pilots are leaving and will probably be leaving in largish numbers. Ther are lots in the various holding pools of Vigin, easy and BA And this is quite something, as just a matter of weeks ago, FCA "was not going to be short of pilots as their not leaving"- being the official line.
These pilots that are leaving, are the ones who are mainly lower down on the seniority lists (although by no means exclusively) who have found that it will be many years before they get a crack at a command. In the region of 6+ years.
The official line from FCA is that we are a mature airline like Britannia and Monarch. This is what happens when the airline stops growing i.e commands created only be from retirements, and you can hardly fault them for that! Where FCA falls down though, is that it is not willing to recognise and reward the potential loyalty and commitment of guys and girls in the RHS who are, or will be long suffering FO's. Monarch for example, give their FO's a notional command seniority, so that when they do eventually get a command, they go on at a higher pay scale. A recognition of their commitment to the airline.
A closer look at terms and conditions of these airlines (available form the BAPLA website and others), will quickly show that FCA is at the bottom of the "mature" airlines. BY for example get an extra weeks leave, pay more and have superior holiday concessions. FCA's holiday concessions have not increased in over 10 years!
Let us not forget why people chose to join FCA in years gone by rather than go to Britannia and Monarch . It was the lure of a quick command and you could easily off set lower terms and conditions against the extra 20k a quick command would bring.
Then easyJet and the likes came along with even poorer terms and conditions.... can you see a pattern?
As for me, I quite like it. Just know that if you want to join a charter airline, without the lure of a quick command you would do well to look at the whole package. Although we are not bad, if you're going to join the bottom of a long seniority list then you might as well join the one that is the best. I don't think it is FCA. Good luck though!