Having BALPA represent the pilots is the only thing that separates our two companies.
There's a great deal more than that, I think you'll find.
Norman, a pleasure as always to hear from you. You're looking well, and please pass my best regards to Mrs. F. One of the reason's I've always admired you, apart from your evident talent with the written word, is the impression I've formed that you actually believe what you write, and maintain your position with consistency. I'll save you the quotation attributed to Voltaire, but you'll take my meaning, I'm sure.
Clearly, you're a man of faith and like all believers you'll go to your grave holding onto a notional allegiance in the central goodness and benevolence of BLAPA. If it pleases you to cling to the minimum of good, despite an Everest in the maximum of bad, documented to the heavens, then I can only wonder at the suspension of disbelief required on your part, and in those of similar mind or those persuaded by your rather thinly constructed argument.
Permit me to touch for a moment on the subject of ID cards, currently in favour by the government of the United Kingdom. As colleagues have noted earlier on this thread, BLAPA have pinned their colours to the mast of this cause with uncharacteristically buttock-clenching fervour. The reason why they have done this is because the choice is formed, as was ever thus, in the highest profile case possible, certain to provide them with a win. The ID card issue is to be shelved. This has already been mooted at Cabinet level as a part of the swinging cost cutting the UK government is required to perform in response to their borrowing more in the past year, than all British cabinets in the past 300 years combined. Out go ID cards, BLAPA take the credit, and hey presto, they're famous for another ill-gotten fifteen minutes. Putrid!
The recession makes for odd bedfellows, but seeking to aggrandise themselves over a cause they know full-well is to be shelved, is opportunism of the most scurrilous sort, and precisely the sort of craven, self-interested behaviour that has identified BLAPA for decades. That they don't give a tuppenny phuck for anyone outside British Airways is demonstrable currently, and provable historically. That you continue, Norman, to hold up the turd that is BLAPA and twist it in the sunlight until it sparkles, does not for a moment, change its nature as a turd.
I will say to you, Norman, that I find it offensive in the extreme that you choose to characterise Ryanair and it's Chief Executive as being emblematic of the Third Reich and its leadership. That the view of Ryanair in the collective psyche of those outside the airline is at complete variance with the view of the majority from within, is a matter of record. I would ask as a friend, Norman, that you stop degrading yourself by making such mawkish extravaganzas in the future. Lets stick to debating the facts as they are on the ground, shall we?
Now then, as to your rather unfortunate continued comparison between Easyjet and Ryanair. This very day, Easyjet has announced doubling of losses, the departure of your Chairman, Sir Colin Swindler, and the highly capable Mr. Carr of your money department. All this at a time when your Mr. Harrison is putting out fires intentionally started by Sir Stellios all over the place because he doesn't want his airline to fail. Oh dear.
It doesn't bode well for your future. Once again, you should consider coming across to work for us, Norman. I'll even interview you myself, over a few pints, of course. As for your recent question...
And by the way Leo, given that "two of your former Orange men are now Senior TRE's at our facility at East Nowhere", I would love to hear their view on leaving now. It is inconceivable to me that anyone who left easyJet in the past, when it was significantly worse than it is now, could hand-on-heart say they are glad they work for Ryanair.
You did read, I presume, the reply from your (now our) Stan Woolley, didn't you?
What amazes me is how superior easyjet consider themselves.
Are you listening NORM? I prefer Ryanair. Absolutely no contest.
In the most reasonable of terms, Norman, I think you and your fellow denizens of beloved Orangeland, massaged as they are by the tender, two-faced caress of BLAPA, are soon to be circling the drain. I even hear on the jungle drums that a certain Mr. W. Brady is soon to join your management team, and that, my dear Norman, will put a cat among the pigeons, I can assure you.
Meanwhile, at a properly run LCC beyond the Bailey Light, we’ll be training 233 brand new baby cadets between now and year’s end, 66 Direct Entry Captain’s, along with our immensely successful command upgrade programme. Might I be bold and suggest it’s an ideal time for you to get with the strength, Norman? As an LTC yourself, you’ll be raking in about £13,200 per month at the current exchange rate, for 11 months of the year. If you find that distasteful, Norman my dear, then perhaps run it past Mrs. Fletcher to see her point of view.