Gonna, the fact is I fly with guys who are in their early twenties. Fact. I find it hard to believe that in a career of 30 years they will not make a Jumbo Command. There certainly are some young-ish looking 744 Captains in the BMC! If you can't achieve a widebody command after 30 years then really you should be looking to join Virgin or somewhere instead of wasting your time with this outfit. You might get a command in ten! And £65000, yes that IS more than I earn! Some of my colleagues who transfered to mainline are taking home as much as me each month and they have only been in KLM 3years. Is YOUR salary capped? No.
I can understand that you're building your case by exaggerating, but that's not going to get you my sympathy. Apparently you don't know the facts about our contract, as I don't know them about yours
I am not exaggerating anything and I find this hurtful. I already have friends in KLM so I probably know a little more of YOUR terms and conditions than YOU have clearly bothered to learn of mine. It is clear that your arrogance is just going to shine through and whatever is said, we will never get YOUR sympathy so it is pointless wasting our breath trying to convince you otherwise.
If we join the KLM list, it will not affect you. You will move up the list 140 places and get a payrise, so why are you bothered about whether we are AMS based or not? Have you been forcebly relocated from one part of Holland to the other by your employer? I have- from the East of the UK to the West. The vast majority of us just want to be on the list and build seniority whilst quietly getting on with our lives doing the jobs that we currently do, getting paid what we do and so on. After a number of years, we will have achieved a certain seniority and IF that allows us to bid further onto a mainline contract then at that point, then we effectively resign from KLC uk and yes we would have to accept an AMS base and to be able to speak the Dutch language to a conversational level. That will be the choice. Many of course will never want to go to mainline for many reasons, most of all the AMS base (commuting might be OK if you are ICA but practically impossible if you are on shorthaul).
I do hope that you and your colleagues don't face the same hassle when you are being relocated to Paris in 2008 or when the French ALPA have made an agreement with Air France to get rid of Dutch jobs just as the VNV did with OUR jobs (Duin en Kruisberg agreement)!
If you don't want to give YOUR support, then don't give it. We won't lose any sleep over it. However, we DO have a lot of support from many of your colleagues and THAT is appreciated.
