But there is something about this Openskies business that indicates to me that it is not just BA Pilots squaring up to BA Management - it is also about BA Pilots also exercising their muscle to the disadvantage of other non-BA Pilots. It appears that they want the work for themselves to the exclusion of others in the same way as was done in GSS and BACON with F/O's from BA parachuted in as Captains with no consideration for the F/O's already in those Airlines.
GSS is a whole different argument and, incidentally, GSS management recently wrote to BALPA calling for an end to secondments completely. Funny enough one of BA's ploys to placate us over OpenLies is.......secondments but then only for the first 6 aircraft.
Right now I don't buy the notion that Openskies is BA Pilots work, however I remain open to be persuaded. But I see it as follows - and please bear in mind that I might not be Mr Bullshot; I could be Monsieur Bullshot or Herr Bullshot:
As Monsieur Bullshot I might reasonably object to being excluded from flying my own countrymen to/from my own country under the highly dubious argument that it is 'BA Pilots work'. Similar for Herr Bullshot.
You are approaching this from the wrong angle. We are saying that any pilot employed by BA at OpenLies should become a BA pilot, not that we are demanding the work for ourselves. If a current BA pilot wished to lower his Ts and Cs by moving across to Open Skies then a vacancy withinm mainline would have to be filled by recruiting a pilot into mainline. i.e.wherever a pilot comes from a new recruit will have to be hired whether into OpenLies or into mainline BUT we wish that new recruit to be recruited to the normal BA criteria and have a BA master seniority list number.
Your argument regarding Herr/Monsieur/Senor Bullshot is spurious. All European natiuonals have the right to live and work in any part of the EEA. BA employ many European pilots in London.
.....neither is it likely that they would be using BA Aircraft. The 757 is an obsolete aircraft. BA would be disposing of some of them to Openskies - in the same way that they disposed of 757s to DHL for example. I don't remember BA pilots demanding that they fly all of DHL's night freight, so why should that argument hold up with Openskies?
It doesn't but like QANTAS losing all the new B787s ordered for them but now going to Jetstar the danger is all new aircraft will go to an ever expanding OpenLies with the separate pilot workforce forever locked into inferior Ts & Cs. A study of Amreican Eagle is illuminating.
I am therefore, still quite perplexed as to why there is an IFALPA ban on employment. How did you BA guys twist that one?
In any event, I can't help feeling that you Chaps might be fighting the right war, but you have chosen the wrong battlefield.
Please , please look further down the road at a) what the trojan horse which is OpenLies has the potential to - do just like American Eagle and Jetstar and b) recognise that if it is us, 'the arrogant, greedy prima donnas with lavish lifestyles and restrictive practices', now who do you think will be next?