On the subject of MAD contracts, I believe the final draft is now complete having been fought over for the past year. While it is probably not perfect I believe it is a significant improvement on the initial offering and that is due in no uncertain terms to the efforts of our Balpa team. Divide and conquer is definately on the management agenda here and I think we need to listen carefully and follow developments on this issue over the coming months. We can not afford to adopt the 'not in my back yard' stance on European issues or we shall ultimately all lose out.
I don't think we shall see many or maybe any DEC's over the next 12 months. The MAD accelerated command issue seems a little oversold here. The NTC has been removed because the 'offer' is closed and oversubscribed. I believe that (reluctantly) the company has been bound by the existing BALPA agreements on base transfers and crews can apply to transfer out in the normal manner. With that in mind there seems little difference between taking a command in MAD and any other base.