I bet the managers are reading all this and rubbing their hands. Divide and rule is alive and well on PPRUNE ! If they've got any sense they'd make anonymous posting of intolerant views compulsory. The real laugh is that no one spouting off here really knows, or has anything other than the standard one person one vote (if it comes to that) say in what is going to happen.
FLYBE have bought / been given (depends on your point of view) BACON. This deal is going to go through. London Airways needs it to to justify sacking every member of ground staff in the UK outside London which was one of the major goals in all this. Had BACON done alright I'm sure they'd have been encouraged to look for alternative ground handling anyway to allow this to happen. London Air can now raise their hands in the air and say "sorry guys not our fault BACON screwed your career up for you". If LA had wanted BACON to succeed DE would NEVER have been allowed anywhere near it ! Put your money on him turning up at LGW sometime soon. They want out of there as well !
Anyway to the point. What we should be discussing is what we can agree on and what we think we can get in return. There is a lot of pride from certain posters about how little they are prepared to work for. Fair enough, if you think that makes a company viable why take a salary at all I'm sure you'd do it for the love of the job. At the same time on the other side there is "you can't touch our T & Cs we've got TUPE !" We ain't got TUPE read DE's Q&A and I quote "TUPE does not apply since this is a share sale and the employer (BA Connect Ltd) does not change." and "I'm not flying a turboprop I'm a jet pilot look at the size of my flight bag". Get used to it guys there are going to be no 195 seats in the short term for x-BACON crew my understanding is there aren't even enough for the FLYBE guys who've already been promised them ! If we don't like it we know where the door is. Some of the really good F/Os who've waited forever for a command will get one. I'm sure they won't mind it's on a Q400.
No group works any harder than the other. I haven't had a weekend off since August and since this stupid RDO bidding came in haven't got one that I've asked for. I've done my 750 hours this year and I'm sure that's probably much the same as anyine in FLYBE. I'm sure some will claim that's not working hard enough and for FLYBE to succeed we must all do 900. CRAP even Ryanair don't believe that anymore. There's just no fat in the system if everyone is working to the max. The only winners there are flightline and titan ! I'm sure if we put our heads together we can get something of a scheduling agreement. Scheduling agreements if run properly shouldn't cost the company anything !
The one thing that is for sure is that nearly everyone will ultimately be disadvantaged in some way. Maybe not immediately but at some point over some issue. That's airlines and pilots for you.
For those who do decide to give it a go please don't start with the he (or she) is ex-something. BRAL/BRYMON happened for too long in BACX and didn't help anyone. It will be even worse this time unless we all accept from day one we are all FLYBE. (for better or worse)
Putting head back below wall now to avoid peltings.
P.S. Absolutely no way I'm signing a three year non-reducing bond though !