Can anyone confirm the following in the article:
BA co-pilots, by comparison, can expect to earn just £24,000 in their first year, according to Balpa. From that salary they must pay back a quarter of the cost of their training, during their first five years with the company.
If correct, it's an interesting twist on the bonding issue where certain people - like
tilii have made much out of BA not bonding. However, those airlines that bond generally don't ask you to pay 25% of the costs!
As for 250 staff per aircraft...
! I spent much of yesterday going over our proposed staffing levels with several of my colleagues - and with 7 operational aircraft we come to 537 staff. That's around 77 people per aircraft - including admin, res, technical, station staff, ops, flight deck and cabin crew (34 crews total). OK, so we're contracting a lot of functions out - but 500?!?!?!
No one has yet explained why the flight deck people think that they are so much better than the rest of BA's employees - and why if they are so concerned about the pay scales of their most junior colleagues, why the senior chaps don't 'adopt an FO' and give him/her 10% of their own salary!
Can't see
that happening, somehow!
As for the alleged shortage of pilots - well, that's debatable. So let's debate it.
What's fact is that the previous primary source of highly trained pilots - the military - has all but dried up. The other source (especially in the States) - the 'captive' commuter airlines - is also drying up; due in no small part to the fact that that's where the real growth is in terms of aircraft numbers (and therefore crew requirements).
There are, as a quick glance over in the Wannabe's forum will show, many pilots who would like to get into the business but they are finding it hard to get onto the first rung of the ladder - due in large part to the requirement of insurers for 1,000 hours TT with multi turbine experience as a prior requisite. At the other end of the scale, you have guys being forced to retire at 55 when they have 10 years or so of useful working life left.
Still, the shortage is decreasing with the failure of a number of airlines over the last year or so - and that's a number that's going to increase as the recession deepens.
Personally, I agree with
Sir Algernon Scruggs (on this issue at least) that the airlines should be investing more in their own futures and creating a pool of pilots from which they can recruit, which some are. However, the problem for them is not so much the new guys but rather the experienced people in the left hand seat that want to move on -
that experience comes only with time. Bonding helps retain some - but if someone is determined to leave, you can't prevent them.
And as for pay - in my opinion, it's not so much an issue of actual pounds and pence - it's an issue of productivity. What's the cost per hour of productive (ie flying, not duty) time to the airline? For the charter carriers, those figures are invariably good - but that's not often the case at scheduled airlines and especially not those which are grossly over-staffed!