@autoflight
Swiss pilots should bite the bullett and just get on with life. Put your children in a public school, sell the cars, get a loan. Get a 320 or similar rating and follow the contracts.
Just for the record: Hardly anyone working in this particular industry or country does anything else. Private schools? Well, you know, actually this country does not need too many of those for it's inhabitants because we manage to get proper education from our public schools. So I doubt that anyone concerned here fits that profile you are suggesting, same goes for "cars".
Get a loan for a typerating? As a normal, taxpaying citizen who has probably not paid off the loan required to get the job in the first place? You've got to be kidding me.
Obviously, those guys on the SB20 are on the very short end of the stick and I guess if anything, they don't need patronizing from people who don't know the first thing of what life is here.
Yep, Crossair pilots were stupid enough to slaughter the goose that laid golden eggs in August 2003, when for various reasons (fear, greed, xenophobia) a majority voted to accept the crappy proposal from management.
The junior pilots voted mainly in favour because they wanted the money to make a new start somewhere else.
Senior pilots voted mainly in favour for because they though that this sacrifice (mainly foreign pilots) would make the peace with the ex-Swissair überpilotinos.
Robert,
Always nice to see your comments on the Swiss situation.
Quite a few of those "greedy" people had a clear idea of what they would be doing, quite some are flying for other companies happily. They were offered money as a compensation, so they went for it. At the time, most of the press and other "experts" were predicting the end of Swiss to be imminent. So I wonder who would not have taken the money and ran, particularly if there were other jobs available? I know a good bunch of people who are flying elsewhere happily after accepting the money enough to pay back loans and draw a line. What's wrong with that?
For the record, also quite a number of Swissair pilots and ground staff, including your's truly, were on the road in late 2001. Not one of them has gotten compensations to my knowledge, I certainly did not. Economic realities, fueled by cross brand hatred and self destructive mechanisms that lead to the downfall of the Swiss airline industry in the first place. I don't see much other countries where this would have been possible.
Swiss aviation politics and the way this fight has been going, resulting in the loss of 2 prime brands in aviation history in replacement for one that is now in foreign hands is one of the worst chapters of political and economical history in this country, unfortunately an example on how Swiss politics are at this stage on a larger scale. So should one blame those who get out and look for a new life elsewhere? Not hardly.