Just a thought. I left BACON of my own free will, and chose Flybe nearly a year ago. I gave up a seniority number which was actually quite high. I have a net salary cut, no jet, but a life again. Yes, I work harder than at BACON, but I ENJOY it. The guys and gals are just as professional, just as much fun, and the management - well, a profit of 21 mil versus a loss of 6 mil = difference of 27 mil over the same six month period. We must be doing something right.
Now, along come all my old mates - and you all know who you are. Please tell me why, as a (relatively) junior Flybe pilot, I should be bypassed, (even with any of the fancy options being talked about) by long service BACONs who didn't choose to do like what I did?
Nope, that doesn't seem fair to me. I joined looking ahead to an Emb 190, I joined because I believe this Company has the ethos and the ability to do just what TRPL did.
All of my erstwhile muckers didn't have the faith, or the guts to make the move. That's not criticism, that's a fact, (and I had nearly fifteen years in the various incarnations of Pigpen). Anyway, you take my point. And if I have a point, then all my present colleagues in Flybe have an even bigger one.
So, while I don't want to create any ruckus, I'm afraid that I cannot vote in favour of any kind of seniority amalgamation. Fair is fair, I voted with my feet, and obviously y'all have the same opportunity!
Hope you decide to come across, I think I appreciate this airline even more than the natives, and that's because I've seen how it was (with TRPL), and I've seen how utterly cr@p it can get (Hutchings) and then again seen it like Manx/BRAL was in, say, the mid - late nineties when we were cleaning up. Reference money (
) of course we all want as much as possible, but it is really economic suicide to expect to get an EZY/Ryan paypacket from this scale of operation. I'd much much much
rather have a secure company and slightly less take home than have to exist under Hutchings etc, never knowing from one month to the next whether I would still have a job next week/month/year - and the end result was just what everyone predicted while vainly hoping they were just being pessimistic, and that somehow it would all work out. I'd be interested to know genuinely how many of you would not have left ages ago had it not been for the lure of the FS pension scheme.
But if you take anything from this, let it be - with all the best wishes in the world - the seniority list is non-negotiable, and you will be
if you think otherwise.
PS - PH / CP / DD in Macdonalds?????? Chr1st, that would solve the obesity problem because the chain would be closed inside a year!
