Re: Pilot seeking UK Lawyer
Whatever the relative merits of your case may be, I think that you should consider your options very carefully. I couldn't possibly give any sort of meanigful legal advice regarding your claim, as there is not enough information provided. Specifically about the contract, for example under which country's jurisdiction is it purported to be operational. Where you classed as an employee or an independent contractor, etc. All of these and indeed many, many more factors will need to be reviewed by a competent lawyer in order to establish the merits of your claim.
We all sometimes feel as though we have been 'sh*t upon' (pardon my injudicious use of language), and it is natural that we should want to make the perceived wrongdoer pay, indeed the law of torts in certain circumstances provide for appropriate causes of action and remedies for the benefit of an aggrieved party. Taking my legal hat off for a moment, I'm sure that we are all familiar with Newton's third law: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". What you may ask am I talking about? And that would be a fair qustion, because I might not yet be making any sense.
I stated at the outset that you should consider your options carefully. Initiating legal proceedings should always be seen as a last resort and not embarked upon lightly. You may have been wronged legally, morally or both. However, you must ask yourself several qustions; why am I suing them?; what do I hope to achieve?; what if litigation is unsuccesful?; what are the repurcussions to pursuing litigation? Only you with the help of your friends and family can answer these questions.
No doubt you have been left with a very bad taste in your mouth following your experiences with this particular airline. Equally, it seems as though you are a very experienced pilot with no doubt excellent employment prospects. Therefore you may need to consider very carefully whether these prospects may be affected if you litigate against an airline. In certain industries news of this sort (i.e. we have a troublemaker) travels around the various H.R. Depts like the speed of light, often making a person virtually unemployable, although I don't know whether this is true of the aviation industry.
A lawyer must act in the best interests of his clent, this sometimes means advising against litigation. Just to be clear, I am not your lawyer and anything I have said is not to be interpreted as legal advice of any sort. (my own personal gut feeling would probably be for you to walk away and put it down to experience) but then again i'm not advising you and I'm not privy to all the relevant facts. Ultimately you need to take good advive and think long and hard about what the next step is going to be. Whatever you choose I wish you every success and good luck