Well I'm glad you feel that way about BA Tucano. I think you'd find most BA pilots are very proud of the good aspects of the company and work very hard to ensure the company is a success. As you rightly put it, no BA, no job. We are also mostly shareholders so when the company performs badly, it hits us in the pocket too, not to mention concerns about job security.
What gets most BA pilots backs up (apart from the endless BA bashing on this forum) is the fact that within BA the problems are all too often laid at the pilots door because thats easier than dealing with the real problems in the company. We'd like nothing more than to see the inefficiencies stripped out of the company so that we can get on with the business of being a world leading airline, but that creates far too much industrial unrest for the managers comfort. BA needs radical reform, and its a testimony to the efficiency and productivity to the Flight Operations department that so little fat could be found to strip out in the F S &S review. The Flight Ops department has led the way in internal efficiency and cost saving whilst other areas of the company have been profligate in their spending, yet its our door they come knocking on for savings. If other departments are working so hard then why did it take marketing 6 months to decide to offer a seat sale when Ryanair did it in six days? Why has it taken years to point out that we can be as affordable as the low cost airlines? Most people on the front line at BA can tell the company how to make savings and do, but its a drop in the ocean compared to the vast waste of resources which come from some of waterworlds madcap schemes.
The direction this thread has taken is a result of the personal experience of many who have joined BA and found it hasn't lived up to the promise. Why shouldn't they tell other people how BA is? Would you prefer we didn't point out that DEPs will struggle to achieve a command, that morale is low? If you want to join BA for reasons of roster stability or pension or fleet variety, then so be it, but at least people will know what they're getting themselves into and won't be disappointed. Perhaps people should resign if they don't like it? Unfortunately its not as easy as that for those with family commitments who will have to take a significant pay cut in the short term in order to improve their prospects in the long term. There aren't many people who want to leave BA, it has been a great airline in the past and we all hope that it will build on that for the future. The problem is that from where we're sitting we just can't see it improving. Nothing ever seems to be done to stop the rot in the company, and every week we're targeted to sacrifice even more. Money isn't everything, but lifestyle is and people are tired of constantly being the bogeymen in the companies eyes (cue usual anti-BA rantings, you should be grateful, I'm on the dole, xxxx is paid less the usual stuff)
This brings me on to the emotive subject of striking, a word that most BA pilots will grimace on hearing. Nobody wants that, nobody. Those who were involved in the last dispute remember the threatening phone calls from managers, the extreme pressure, the uncertainty and stress. It is not a pleasant experience, nor a course of action to be pursued lightly. But what option is there when all negotiations have failed? The pilot market isn't like the IT market. Before the slowdown you could walk out of a well paid job in the IT industry and straight into another. That can't be done in the flying industry because of seniority rules and incremental pay scales. The day everyone is paid the same regardless of length of service we'll see true mobility of labour, which is exactly what the airlines want to avoid and why we'll never see it. So what do you suggest?