tb10er
Please take some time to read about the nub of the issue on
www.baplane-bapilot.org
I presume that you aspire to fly 'a big plane' for basically two reasons.
1 Because to fly a big shiny Boeing or Airbus is a career aspiration for many pilots.
Normal and reasonable !
2 That the 'big' airlines pay the better salaries and have better conditions overall.
Why do you think that is the case ?
BA turns over somewhere around £8 BLN a year. We will announce this Friday that we made around £700 MLN profit in the last 9 months. I think we are the most profitable pax airline in the world.
Like you - we had career aspirations to join an airline that would reward us better in the long term. BA and other larger airlines have the revenue and yield to offer better packages. BA is now screwing us over. We have now just been told (with glee by the duty leech) that the pilot managers are driving this money saving conflict - not the leadership team as we had presumed. Classy SS !
Many of us climbed the greasy career ladder that (I would presume?) you are just starting out on. We have gone from !!!!!e flying jobs, to slightly less !!!!!e job, uprooted homes, uprooted families, given up Commands, paid bonds off, etc to end up in BA.
So yes, we receive a better package than many other pilots do - but when the company is trying to screw us over on our pay/pension/rostering (whatever it is this week) - would you prefer that we roll over and accept another Jetstar type situation to occur ? 30 % of QANTAS fleet is now comprised of Jetstar aircraft.
Jetstar pilots receive around 2/3rds of the pay of QANTAS pilots. If you would prefer for us to roll over and let the job that you aspire to having to be decimated in the way Jetstar, Clickair etc have been - you dont understand the problem and are letting the idea that a childhood aspiration of flying a 'big plane' cloud your judgment.
tb10er, please take the time to understand why when so many pilots who go the extra mile - day in - day out (just like you I would guess) - have now had enough of out lying, stealing, morally bankrupt management trying to steal our career aspirations from us - against our SCOPE clause.
We do NOT want to go on strike.
It is quite abhorrent for me to realise that I MUST both tick the box for industrial action and also actually withdraw my labour. It will be the saddest day in my career.
We protect what we have (and lets not forget we are not asking for something new - we are merely asking for our current existing agreements to be honored) for selfish reasons. But if we don't - I can assure you that you will not be aspiring to fly 'big planes' for BA on their aspirational terms and conditions...