Hand Solo, we currently have hot and cold running BA cadets joining our TP fleets. The message we're being fed is that we're all part of the same big happy BA group. Now, I've crossed swords with yourself and others on this in the past and was presented with the idea then that scope would be wonderful for us BACE chappies and that we should stop moaning and undercutting you and get on with it in our pokey little rat-hole of an airline. Well, I've come round to your way of thinking, at least on the undercutting bit, and I don't believe we should be paid any less than yourselves to operate these aircraft.
You seem irritated by our attitudes and desires. A couple of points. While some of us will walk on to bigger and better things, a lot of our pilots stay with company because they like their locality and aren't driven by a burning desire to fly heavier and faster aircraft. Also we were quite happily going along, paddling our own canoe. We didn't ask to be bought out by BA. There will also be an anomoly in that BACE pilots and BA pilots will be flying essentially a similar type, 146 v's RJ100 on two different sets of conditions. I can also say that this isn't an open invitation for you to pinch the 146 jobs for yourselves either.
We are told that the grown ups want these aircraft to be flown on the BACE cost-base. I'd be interested to see what part of this cost-base is made up of crew salaries. If the BA pilot body genuinely wanted to sort this problem out they would be discussing this with the BACE pilots and presenting a united front to our overall bosses. For those who say that it would be wrongto assimilate BACE, a precedent has been set by Cityflyer being fully absorbed into BA mainline. The simplest way of preventing your colleagues from having to relocate would be to have both sets of pilots flying on the same Ts and Cs. There is a genuine feeling in BACE that we're being shafted. While you snipe at us and treat us like second rate citizens isn't it any suprise that we really don't feel any solidarity with you or much sympathy with the predicament of your BAR colleagues?