Back to topic.
easyJet is doing good. Of course the airline is affected by the financial climate, but not at all in trouble. This is very imoirtant to remember. The AMB is using the economic climate to try and change the T&Cs for the pilots with help of threats and horror stories of how bad its affecting the airline. Once again, thats just the managament trying to use the market against us, whilst it is not correct in that sence.
easyJet does not want to upgrade their own FOs, they want to hire contract pilots instead. This will affect standards and safety. This I can say because looking back at last year with some of the contract pilots eJ had over the summer ( well actually 6 months.........) there were much more G/As and ASRs filed and most often including contract captains name on the paper. Also not to forget, the fuel bill for that, AND the cost! They earn about £700 per day plus travel expenses.
Taking away the tea and coffee is just to have some fun, and showing the pilots that the managment can do what they want. The serious thing is them taking away food and water that the pilots pay for, and summer time with duty days of about 11 hrs and 3 bottles of water only??? In the heat? This is where the airline made a investigation about Health and Safety, and just how important it is to drink minimum one bottle of water per sector. So its pretty clear the maths dont add up here.
Finally, the managment cutting down on things is fine, as long its negotiated and agreed upon. But when its not negotiated at all, and the managment giving themselves a payrise AND bonuses, well then they are asking for trouble.
And I hope to God BALPA will give them hell for this, because its not acceptable at all. The managment has proven to be very unreliable, and for the pilots means that them being loyal went out the window. The managment shot themselves in the feet really really bad this time.
This fight I hope gives all of us some extra guts to stand up towards airline management that are screwing around with pilot colleagues. Ok, time are bad, but using that to cut down on our living quality for own bonuses that is illegal and shall be punished!
