Seriously, do yourself a massive favour and avoid FR like the plague! It will save you a lot of stress in the long run.
I suppose I should really qualify my statement, this being a public forum and all. The main reasons to join are stable roster, home every night etc etc.
The reasons for not joining are plentiful, let's start with having no union representation, this in turn means that FR can and will change your T&C's at a drop of a hat and there's nothing anyone can do to stop them. T&C's will continue downward pretty quickly now that FR seem sure that next year will be a blood bath (they seem to think every year will be similar), and they have just managed to get a new pay deal through at their biggest base STN (with a majority of 50.05% apparently, although no numbers are given to back that up by the company!). It's essentially a case of 'same !!!!, different day' which can be incredibly tiring after a very short time.
Then there are the other things like the annual leave system, this involves having to request all your leave for the year in one go at the beginning of the year. You pick 2 2 week allocations and 1 1 week allocation, three sets of dates for each which cannot overlap (about six months worth of time) and the company then allocate your leave, which once done is nigh on impossible to change. Confusing? You bet!
Then there are the changes they randonly make to you T&C's throughout the year, like changing our stby's from 8 hours to 12 hours, with no notice our discussion. I could go on but you get the idea.
Moral has just gone through the floor and everyone is pretty pissed off with their lot really. You can get your own back in small ways though. I won't go into details except to say I don't know the meaning of fuel economy!!
The best thing to do is search for FR related posts on this forum, there are plenty of them to keep you busy! This is probably the most talked about airline on pprune, and not for any good reasons!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from an extremely unhappy FR camper!!
Last edited by Flaps5speed180; 24th December 2007 at 16:42.