South Coast,
I appreciate your comments - indeed, no doubt with time will come change, and I'm sure I'm not the first example of your very eager FO, and I'm sure I shan't be the last. But I do understand this company somewhat, and I think long gone are the days where you 'yes sir' or 'thank you ma'am' everyone you meet in an effort to please. Don't get me wrong, I'll always go out of my way to help my colleagues do their job because they are the people I am working with, so of course I'm going to do my best for them. But I realise what our company cotton on to, and I realise the part I played in the eroding of our working lives by paying for my type rating and almost feel obliged to do nothing more to satisfy it. Unfortunately I find there is a very fine line to cut when crewing ask you to work a day off (it's been happening more recently for some reason), sometimes I say yes if I genuinely feel up for it, but if I can't do it then I can't do it, and I make that clear. I see some people in my position literally bending over backwards and sometimes I feel like giving then a slap!
I'm all for a unity between pilots/cabin crew, but it is difficult within FR due to the vastness of the airline in terms of bases and the sheer volume of staff distributed around them.
I can't imagine anybody not wanting things to improve, but of course you can think of it like a thunderstorm - it requires a 'trigger'. I personally believe that it is in human nature (as persons and as people) to allow oneself to be pushed around to a point, but when considering people as thousands of persons, there comes that point when there is a silent agreement between all that something needs to be done.
In a way, this has led to a complacency on my part that, ok, things are certainly not improving, but surely there will come a point when we'll all say at once,
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
I'm not a businessman, I understand the fundamentals, but how would one go about such a transformation?
I'm sure Flintstone will jump in and tell everyone not to buy type ratings, and of course he is right. If nobody bought their own ratings, as supply began diminishing the airline would be forced to explore alternatives. But my qualm with this, is I don't believe it's practical to organise thousands of people into such a line of action, especially when you couple that to the fact that every one of these thousands has ambitions higher than Mt Everest!
I guess the real question is, what can we do from the inside in a company that doesn't recognise trade unions?
Thanks