Originally Posted by
Strimmerdriver
When a certain Copilot pointed out that SH were not exactly flying much yet BA were recruiting he was vilified. Why would BA want to be overstaffed
Well that Copilot was talking out of somewhere else other than his mouth. Over 90% of the recruitment into BA in the last 12 months was fed into LGW for the new single fleet. We had to more than double our numbers to make that possible. Easy to prove as I'm working in training these days.
As for the SH one out-nightstop-one back trips, I do not know exactly how that works at LHR but at LGW we probably have 4 trips in a whole month like that (out of 1600+). We have a lot of two day-six sector trips and fixed links. I would be in favour of this kind of arrangement (yes, fixed links DO work people, although sometimes it means longer sectors linked together, but when it's a NCL-NCL fixed-link it means you get home some 90mins early!) as we have had for over 18months now and it is somehow working well. I think this is an area you should reconsider guys.
As for the new contracts being brought in line with old ones.....who are we kidding? Why didn't anybody do anything before? When I started at LGW I was (and many other people) on £9,000
exactly per year (gross) when LHR new contracts were some £600 more than us already, and nobody did anything to change that, despite our requests!!! Mr Karl BASSA at LGW even had an argument with me during the initial training presentation of BASSA and refused to address the issue as he kept saying that "it is not true it's all in your head"!!!!!
How can I - and many others - feel close to BASSA's positions now, just tell me?
The only one thing I agree with you "oldies" in BA is the NAPS issue, the fact that BA took huge risks by their own initiative, stopped paying into it because " things were going well" is entirely their own responsibility and fault and you and your families shouldn't have to pay for their mistakes. Those management ppl who thought they could go away with it should be fleeced right here right now.
As for some crew working for charter airlines thinking that BA is better is true. I used to work for a major UK charter carrier and couldn't wait to jump ship (for other reasons than money). We knew little about BA rosters, t&c's however we used to see that they were well looked after by their unions while our company even refused to accept we might have a union (CC89 at that time) who, by the way, couldn't care less about us. So the fact that the unions somehow are being proactive towards BA issues, whatever they might be, makes BA even more appetible for many of those crew Dogs_ears_up talked about.