BTW out of interest would you guys in ENG consider yourselves paid the industry rate?
Honestly - No. BUT - most of us have moved around a bit, mostly due to redundancy, and when you have worked elsewhere you realise that pay is not everything. In general Virgin is a much better place to work than pretty much all the places I have worked. There is nowhere near as much whinging etc as you get elsewhere, we actually have decent equipment etc to work with and the management are, in general, much more sensible than a lot of other places. So as I said, pay isn't always everything.
As they can afford to pay the groundstaff a decent wage
How many time do I have to say this? The hourly rates for CC are not that different to Technicians. And Technicians are pretty well paid compared to other ground staff. That means that your rates are well up there and certainly above a lot of ground and office staff.