I am one of those who in the past have been a consistent defender of easyJet. I wish at the outset to nail my colours to the mast and say I would in principle like to remain at easyJet for the rest of my career. To make me stay the company would not have to try too hard. However, for reasons best known to themselves, our board/managers seem to have put themselves on a direct collision course with the pilot community. My own assessment is that there are significant problems which could so easily have been avoided.
The deal at easyJet is basically OK if you are a captain (approx £4300 take home if you pay min pension). The real problem lies in the perception that we are not a 'career airline'. In practice this boils down to 3 issues - the 5/2-5/4 rostering system which has generally proven to be exhausting for most of us, the dismal pension scheme (7% from the company) and no private healthcare. When taken together this has created a widespread impression that the company simply does want pilots to make a long term commitment to the company. The pension alone would guarantee poverty in your old age without massive shoring up from your own pay.
The next area where it has gone wrong is the hot rumour that the company are going to make a big profit for the last year (£60m mentioned but no one knows yet). Despite this, our current pay offer is 2.1% over the coming year (less for the non-UK bases), an increase of 2% in the pension scheme if we give up our in-flight food and an effective reduction in our loyalty bonus – although all is not lost as our managers will receive generous bonuses! Taking into account inflation this is actually a pay cut!
The final area of creeping discontent has been what could be described as crass ineptitude in handling sensitive issues by our managers. These include the sending of a frankly offensive e-mail to all Gatwick-based pilots from our Flt Ops Director. In it he dismissed all complaints about difficulties at the base and concluded with a promise of even harder work to come and the offer of 'fatigue management' to help us cope better! To say this letter has been badly received by one and all would be an extremely generous view! Other issues inlcude the hiring of DECs while we have literally scores of excellent FOs awaiting command courses, base transfer fiascos which among other things favour new entrants over current employees, a leave allocation system which is completeley random and unjust plus an ongoing dispute involving a number of FOs and their unpaid loyalty bonuses. The last issue was exacerbated by the fact that some FOs were paid in full by mistake and others were not. To cap it all, our Recruitment Manager was quoted in Flight last week as saying that the company would be recruiting even more DECs despite there being an ever-growing group of FOs awaiting promotion. This list of frankly avoidable problems are down to straight mismanagement by our Flt Ops Department. They could and should all have been easily resolved through simple communication and have not been. In essence the pilots have lost all confidence in their immediate managers. Frankly, if the new CEO knew what chaos and ill-feeling his 'managers' had generated, his first act would be to sack some of them because they have created major industrial problems that just did not need to be there.
I therefore have to humbly disagree with my colleagues mingthemerciless and outofsynch about the current state of easyJet. It is hard to even recognise the 'happy ship' they seem to be part of. I can only tell you my own personal experience of the last few months where the universal discussion on nearly every working day are these problems and the other jobs that are out there. I cannot give an exact figure but my feeling is that well in excess of 60% of the FOs I fly with are actively applying for other jobs and are just waiting to hear. The sad thing is that so much of this current hassle is within our management's power to deal with but they are failing to do so. It is bad enough they have failed to do their basic jobs regarding the grievances I have mentioned. To now effectively impose a pay cut while they and our illustrious board members get big bonuses is a recipe for serious discord and ultimately strike action. This could be such a good company but as I have said previously 'the ship is being spoiled for a hape'worth of tar!'