"For 8 years I have been paid a reasonable wage on time each month, flown well maintained aircraft, been treated fairly and worked with some great people - not exacty compelling reasons to move on are they."
Precisely, cushioned in the 'comfort zone', hoping against all odds that BACon wouldn't go under, head buried so far in the sand that the glaring light of the inevitable never got through. It was never going work and those who were prepared to move and yes, in some cases, take cuts in pay and conditions albeit for a brighter and more secure futre, did so years ago. As unpalatable as it may appear, TLP's last post was spot-on.
Now, and it's only a suggestion......BACon guys and girls. No matter how much you jump and shout you are the new kids on the block. Accept it and realise that the bottom of the seniority list is where you would put 300 pilots from another company if they were to owe their future jobs and mortgages after being saved by BACon.
But.........to offset the bottom of the list, flyBe take the BACon crew across onto their equivalent years served-in rank pay-point. OK, a drop for some BACon jet captains but hey. ...you've got a job and if you don't like it then go and get one of these many(?) other job opportunities out there.
flyBe......the BACon pilots' T&Cs played no part in its downfall. Grossly inept management and the BA 'excess baggage' that was wholly unsuited to regional ops dragged the company under. Your CC should aspire to emulate BACon's T&Cs for the benefit of you all. Most importantly, it imposes a financial discipline on the flight ops management to ensure that crewing levels are sustained and rostering is planned because if it isn't it costs and affects the bottom line. I am willing to bet that you wouldn't have had such a massive turn-over in crew in the past few years and have now such a relatively inexperienced workforce if 'lifestyle' issues had been resolved.
