Yes well said Dark Clouds
You really have to question their logic bringing in f@$ter as CEO. What has he really achieved in the last 4 years.
Allowances cut, Annual increments stopped, flying excessive hours, fatigue. Yet the airline is still making a loss. Now that he has been pushed out they increase the supplementary allowance. I agree it is well short of the cuts he made, but there are rumors of increasing the hourly allowance, which has not changed for many years.
Will it be enough though, what 3 to 4 year captain, reaching 3000 hours command would consider staying with RBA, given he is still on first years captains pay and its never going to increase, or what new captain will stay beyond the minimum time before moving on.
The days off and call out issue stems from the past when they operated a few 737s, good salary, parties on the beach every Saturday night, flying club mentality, all great. Most airlines repay days off worked with two days off, or one day off and a cash incentive, RBA just give the days off worked, back another day. This may have been OK in the old days where the salaries were considered high, and there was plenty of goodwill between pilots and management, but management have certainly ensured this relationship has not continued.
The fact remains, f@$ter decimated flight ops, destroying any loyalty, goodwill, trust and any long term career prospects with RBA, and now even though he has been pushed on, all the other managers in flight ops remain. They have cut your pay and allowances before, worked you up to maximum duty hours, fatigued and with no lifestyle for three years, what makes you think they will not ignore your signed contract and repeat it all again soon if many pilots leave, Dark Clouds is correct, there is an increasing number of new captains reaching the experience levels sought by other carriers now. With jobs available there may be a shortage of pilots in RBA again, who would be happy to repeat the last 3 years again, how many would leave, given there are options.
There is plenty of distrust in management now, which way are they going to go. In the short term they can simply blame everything on f@$ter, 15 – 20 of the more experienced pilots leaving in the last few months alone (15 captains I read), more than likely many more, what will they do to stabilize the airline, and bring back their workers trust, or do they really care?
It baffles me, how bad does an airline CEO have to be, before no one will hire them, its seems, no matter how incompetent they are, after they get the push, and a huge bonus for failing, they get employed by some other idiot airline.
I’m speechless.