Good luck to those of you about to join. As has been said before,there are a great bunch of guys out there on, both sides of the door, but the Company has changed for the worse since arrival of new MD several years ago. He has no people skills whatsoever and as an ex accountant ( aren't they all),he only has one thought on his mind........how to save more money.
Staff travel is crap anyway so i wouldn't get too excited about that and as for the rosters,the word stable is unheard of (18 changes in 1 month alone was my record).Many of the long flights will routinely exceed FTL's while on others you will join the hordes of unwashed while you deadhead,in uniform,back from delightful places such as Tel Aviv at 4am.............mmmmmmm!As for any sort of bonus or profit share,forget it.Even the insulting gesture of a £25 M&S voucher at Xmas was stopped as soon as new MD arrived.The Directors still get their bonuses though!
Good points such as final salary Pension,loss of licence,etc are NOT the same for new guys and I fear are likely to be eroded in years to come. Once they get over 50% of guys on new pension then they can stop old one which i'm sure will happen sooner or later. Like EGGW,I too left several years ago as I could see the rot starting to set in which was a shame because I miss the people but not the Company.This expansion may well prove me wrong,and for the sake of my collegues whom i've left behind I hope it does,but Monarch is not the Company it once was and I wasn't prepared to spend another 20yrs flogging my guts out for the benefit of the few at the top and Monarch's secretive owners!
I wish the Union well in their efforts to improve the T & C's and hope they manage to achieve something worthwile......for a change!