Hi Growler,
I hear so much of Spotty M re-arranging their shift pattern to suit their maintenance programme that they might get it right one day. I met an 'M' bloke who I used to know in my military days. He left BAMC when the 7 on, 3 off, 7 on 4 off was introduced, and he seemed quite happy with the 'M' shift as it was. I'll have to nip over and buy him a coffee some time and find out what is happening over the apron.
As for the sell off, all has gone very quiet on that front. There is a Q and A forum at work; various people have made valid contributions to it to try to convince management that it would be better to keep maintenance in house and take on 3rd party work but the reply 'Maintenance is not considered part of TTO core operations' keeps appearing. Intreseting how BA had the same thoughts some years ago, yet to my knowlidge they still do a lot of in-house maintenance! I believe that Britannia have a cost effective maintenance system now, but it will become very expensive once it is farmed out. Also, if the mew company takes on a lot of other maintenance, will Britannia get all their 'C' checks done in the core winter months at cost and on time? I think not.