Hi Chaps - the honest answer is that this is not the deal I had hoped but it is not an unmitigated disaster either. I have been working away to try and make head or tail of it and that alone tells its own story. If you have to work really hard to find out if you have had a pay rise or cut it is probably not good news!
We should say much has been achieved including rescuing our French and German colleagues from disaster. We have not been able to rescue the Milan situation but I never thought we would. The restructuring of pensionable pay has added the equivalent of 1% making it an effective 8%. The FOs are back in the hunt over the loyalty bonus issue and we are not now looking at a succession of pay cuts in the future as was the case previously.
It really all boils down to the Performance Bonus. I am slightly ill at ease at giving up a perfectly good loyalty bonus for a scheme which depends on our managers doing well or badly. I am not a gambling man and am naturally more attracted to a slightly lower but guaranteed return. Nonetheless, the whole offer stands or falls on how the company does. To quote from a contributor on the BALPA website, consider the case of a Year 2 Captain (C3) who does about 1 ASBY per month (12 per year) and about 450 sectors a year at Gatwick. If we do not hit our threshold then the deal is worth about 1.81% gross or 1.45% net. If, however, we get maximum bonus then the deal is worth 5.61% gross or 4.92% net.
Having now had much more time to analyse the offer, it is with great regret that I am leaning towards a NO vote. I had fully expected to be able to vote YES but at this stage it seems unlikely.