TopBunk,
I am not for a moment suggesting the TRC's are not every bit as professional and as capable as Dispatchers at turn round management, but please note that they only carry out half the functions of a load control licensed Dispatcher, and therefore have to be supported by external load control. As a company, BA is trying to 'reduce complexity and focus on the core business', so, again, I'm not sure how two departments are better than one in that respect.
The four crews I spoke to today about this proposal were of the opinion that this was indeed a backwards step, although admittedly I don't think they'll go on strike over the issue...
HZ123,
The current pay scale for Dispatcher is A6. The proposal currently on the table is that the Turn Round Manager grade will be APPG (two grades higher than A6) and the Centralised Load Controller's will be A5. The CLC grade will, however, have pay protection for ex-dispatchers, so they'll continue to receive the same renumeration.
Eventually, the increase for TRM and decrease for CLC will balance out, but only after all the pay protected staff have left.
To set up a seperate Load Control centre will require five new shift managers (Approx £200k p.a), additional rent for another office at LHR (Approx don't-know-but-it's-got-to-be-in-the-tens-of-thousands p.a) and extra delay cost as time is lost communicating between two different departments. To reiterate, I cannot see how two departments are cheaper / more efficient / less complex than one.
The remark about Dispatchers earning £40,000 is not entirely accurate, I can name people on my shift who are on half of that. Some dispatchers do earn good money, but they practically live at work - 17 hour shifts are not unusual.