You know, saying that FR is a good place to work is like calling North Korea a good place to live. Your day to day life might be OK if you look at it from a day to day perspective, but the overall picture is a damn sight worse.
I agree that the flying is good fun, the aircraft are well maintained and all fairly new, the people you fly with are, on the whole, good eggs, but, and it's a big but, the rest of the airline and the effect that it's having on the industry in relation T&C's is totally unacceptable (look at the £13,000 reduction in new Captains salaries, for just one example).
And don't be so quick to discount REPA as simply a bunch of moaners. Those "moaners" are the only people who are committed to putting FR back on the right track. And they realise that what happens at FR will affect the rest of the industry (as evidenced by one former REPA poster who left FR and then found his new company expected him to accept a drastic change to his T&C's 'because this is the kind of thing that happened at FR').
The reason we stay is because we believe the only way to get anything done is by tackling FR head-on. Rather than running away and hoping that the problem won't catch us up. (I realise that no-one should be forced or feel that they have to stay. There are many reasons for wanting to leave FR, not just the obvious ones)
If you are sitting fat, dumb and happy at FR, then you need to take a closer look at the company and what plans it has for you for the future. This is a problem the whole UK pilot body needs to be looking at as it starts to permeate into other companies. You have been warned!
The total lack of forward thinking by some guys at FR is astonishing. Saying that you are happy at FR and therefore are quite happy to accept reduced T&C's is ridiculous. You are selling yourselves short and helping to bring down the rest of the industry.
I have something like 35 years left in my career, and I would like to think that I'm not one of the few who actually cares where we are going to end up if we continue to let this happen.
