Airlink Scotland,
Please go and buy yourself a basic Employment law book. One probable reason why BA was so keen to pay to have Flybe take Bacon off their hands is that they would otherwise have had some very complicated and potentially embarrsing issued to deal with, not least the need to reveal the BAcon, BAR and BA accounts to interested partes and the authorities. Thanks to five years of mismanagment, BAcon were already high scorers in the BA annual report for tribunal cases (mostly lost or settled).
BA / Bacon threw most of any potential profit into paying for lawyers to fight and generally lose cases against staff which could easily have been settled with a sensible discussion and a bit of give and take. Unless they are completely stupid, I canot imagine Flybe managment trying to twist and squirm their way around the many sensible laws which have been developed to protect workers from never ending attempts to errode terms and conditions.
Company mergers are very complex and the TUPE laws which have been developed to cover these situations are not ideal, but most tribunals will take a dim view of any major company which tries to blatantly avoid the meaning and intent of these rules. I have every faith in the ability of the staff reps, their many knowlgeable advisors and Flybe managment to sort this merger out sensibly without delay.