Well, as you know I support an average 11% increase for crew, so my comments were more meant for the idea of every department represented by a union saying "they got X%, so we want Y%" - it strikes me as completely unaffordable, and would cripple the company quickly.
So VSlhr, are you suggesting that the ground staff (sorry crew, but regular groundstaff don't have a forum on here for some reason, engineers and dispatchers/ops do but non for the rest of us), some of whom earn less than the crew should just sit idly by and sigh when we got 2% (no negotiation - which is why I thought we had a staff commitee in place of a union to do this - maybe I'm just naieve
) and the crew have got 4.8% for last year and will get another 4.8% in a few months time ?. This also coming just a couple of years after the pilots too got a whopping great payrise after threatening strike action ?. Yet us on the ground without whom the airline would not be able to function and have no union get shafted time after time.
What do you suggest, that we keep putting up with endless price rises on everything, whilst HAVING to live near to the airport which happens to be in the most expensive part of the country as we cannot commute like most crew due to our rosters ?. Even those that live a bit futher out where prices are a bit cheaper then get shafted with the extra cost of petrol. 2% just does not cover these costs. We too should at least be getting RPI. Our 2% is practically a pay cut. It is virtually impossible to get a mortgage for a single person on what most of us earn on the ground to live in a majority of the area's around LHR/LGW. Are you happy living in rented accomodation for ever ? as I'm certainly not !!.
Also why should the crew get crew down payments when they are short and we on the ground don't ?. Do you and I not have to do more work in the same amount of time when we are staff short as well for nothing extra ?.
It would not cripple the company as you say if the company stopped wasting money on silly things like that big ball in the new drive through area and gold plating the ceiling in the revivals lounge, when gold paint would have done just as well or spending £800 on a single office chair of which there are loads around the company when they could have bought chairs for £50 that would work just as well. Aside from staff costs, did you know that the companies 2nd most expensive outlay after fuel is the limo's !!!. Even BA don't offer limo's for their 1st class pax and they do pretty well. Yeah offer them to the top 100 g/c holders to give them an incentive, but as every full fare J pax is entitled to
2 limo's each !!. How cost effective can that be ?. It must certainly be hurting the bottom line !!.
Sorry to the crew/mods for going off on a tangent, but I hope that you can understand how alot of us feel who you leave behind each day as you jet off to far flung places. We don't resent you for what you have achieved, we just want a bit of equality throughout the company when it comes to pay increases.
The flight deck should call up on taxi in and ensure bus is there!
This then exasperates the problem as there are then busses sat around for up to 40 minutes doing nothing whilst you taxi in then disembark the passengers that could be doing something else !!. As Captb747 said, there are only a finite number of busses at LHR, that provide crew transport for almost every airline aside from BA (who have their own - but even they have to wait at busy times) as well as using the same busses for passenger transport too. Also even if they have just 1 driver call in sick, then thats one less bus available to transport you, but hopefully things will improve later in the year when from what I understand crew check-in will move into T3 so you most likely won't be needing busses unless your on a remote stand.
(oh one last unrealted thing, to all VS crew, please please have a read in the rumours thread in the pilots forum about the Qantas 747-400 that almost crashed due to blocked drains in the fwd galley overflowing and taking out the a/c electrical system it left the a/c electrics on battery power only - and believe the engineers when they ask you not to pour milk/orange juice/red wine ect down those drains !!!)
