Cloud Bunny,
Current T & C's (rounded up/down)
New entrant (up to final line check) £25k
Frozen ATPL (from final line check) £36.5k
Unfrozen ATPL £45k
SFO £47k
FOs sector pay £14
Captain £75k
Captains sector pay £23
So a FO could expect around £51k gross whilst a Captain can expect £86k gross.
The grass often appears greener but often disappoints - I will not consider jumping ship to Ryanair. Ryanair have failed to impact on baby ops primarily because when they expand into a current baby base the airfield management seem to be insisting on new routes not competition over existing routes. Perversely this is good for baby - Ryanair advertising raises the profile of the new (to them) airfield, when pax find they can't fly to their preferred destination with Ryanair they look elsewhere and sometimes we pick up their custom.
I will echo the comments of others on here that baby is a good employer with a really decent chief pilot. Not perfect but all small niggly stuff that will seem trifling if/when the recession bites. The ex Ryanair pilots with baby seem to be glad with the T & C's and are certainly not looking to move back to Ryanair. Time to command is now looking longer as a pool of command assessed FO's builds up - some new command courses going through at 2 per month.
Rumours abound concerning bmi - but the middle managers whom I trust (where else can you say that!!!!) seem pretty confident about the future.
It's been said elsewhere that SMB is looking to buy not sell so prospects appear better here than many other places. Only time will tell.