Until Scottie started banging on about how great Balpa/CC is I agreed with pretty much all that was being said.They have been as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
Every year for the last 3 years that I've been at eJ the company has been allowed to erode the the T&C's of the pilot workforce. Each time we have had to compromise-this year we gave up up a weeks leave in order to to go onto the 5/4/5/2, the previous year to get a pay rise the F/O's had to give up their loyalty bonus and then when they got their Command hundreds of miles from home they go onto 90% of the skippers salary for the first 6months.
Only last week a pilot who was full of the joys of 5/4/5/2 during the 6 month trial @LTN and was down @our base(900hrs last 12mths Wizofoz!!!!) complaining how knackered he now was-DOH!! The company put in extra crew into LTN/EDI during that period to 'show' how great it was.