Having been tango'ed for about a year now I have slowly had my rose tinted specs darkened slowly!
RANT ON
Now I know nothing is perfect at easyJet but as many say it is quite close to becoming a very good airline. I speak to so many captains who speak of it 2 years ago where, whilst it was hard work was still a good place to work.
I just see now that we are getting sillier and sillier, and bickering amongst ourselves about an everdecreasing set of standards that are slowly getting closer and closer to Ryanair's for a lot less money and whilst BALPA isn't doing a thing to stop this.
It is almost fact that anyone who is any good as a BALPA rep is sidelined and offered a management position (look at BA) and the rest are left to sing louder about how much they do in their spare time whilst us on the line get second hand info and small colmuns in the log, whilst the rest is filled with BA Blindline info and stuff about TVR's. Great, thanks.
What is this thread about? Captains in the RHS. Do I think it will compromise safety? No more than the 5 consecutive earlies, followed by disruption, followed by minimum rest in noisy cramped 737 cockpits and like others have said unrealistic turnarounds where cabin crew are now supposed to check 100% of lifejackets in a diminishing time? The job is going to get done day in day out due to the fact the aircraft are excellent...crews professional and the law of averages but the crew are tired sometimes fatigued. Who wants to call that in all the time if at all? These fatigue studies are a joke, they come in to see you after you get off leave. "...What do you think buddy?? I feel great I just had a week in the Maldives?!.."
Why dont we have someone from the CAA or these fatuge specialist spend 3 months shadowing one person unbeknown to crewing etc and see how they like it?
I am not joking when I say I have had turnarounds where I havent had time to go to the toilet, then we havent touched on how bad I 'feel' when I ask to go in the cruise.
This airline are on a massive money saving drive and yet they seem to be doing it in all the wrong places. They get rid of our Base Support Admin and replace it with Cabin Crew 'Assistants' who now look down their noses since I cant change my password for my email full of Phil Barton's propaganda which he now get's someone else to email out.
Then we see all this Step Change crap? I mean has anyone worked out what it is and who the hell are the Ambassadors?! Just have a look at some of the job titles and the number of people doing it. Imagine not one of them is on less than 25k average..to do what SAVE money?
So they think they can ask already overworked captains to sit in the RHS for 85k a year to be nothing more than a Radio Operator then great.
What will go next? Crew Food? No Pay Rise? Pay for recurrent training? No HOTAC?
I feel someone somewhere is losing the plot and slowly but surely we will see things getting to the point where Ryanair is a viable option as there will be nothing betwwen us in terms of conditions and if Ryanair do go to 5/4 as they are promising I will be seriously considering it. At least there you join knowing you are going to be screwed but get paid a lot more for it. They operate their airline on half the staff. We offer no more in terms of service than them...unless you speak to someone in Luton who say our on board branding blah blah....I hear more and more people thinking about it, for each RHS/LHS it is another 1k a month minimum...They are moving in on our bases and routes. I know many an FO that is just waiting for his Bus course, 500hours on type then he/she is off elsewhere but ahem...of course there are so many TRSS and Cadets waiting in the wings for their shot at the title...
I dont think anywhere is perfect, but I think slowly but surely this place is going to the dogs and it need not. This is the next in the line of management ideas which are ill thought out and just implemented before they guage any kind of impact on morale..and the answers are out there..it is not going to go down well, but when did that get in the way of a good idea?
RANT OFF (for another year!)