I would like to refer to my CC colleague Abusing The Sky but this is also gonna be a wider picture I will try to draw for those who are not familiar with FR or those who seem to live a happy and very provicial life in some supposedly FR "heavenly base".
The very common story of 2 FR pilots:
Cadet:
-passes the selection and has to find (often in a very few days) 28K euros to fund his training not including accomodation/food for the whole period (ground school/sim/base training)
-during line training (after safety pilot release) earns peanuts and gets thrown around all across the FR network wherever there are line trainers available (accomodation/transport/food at his own expenses)
-after passing his line check he gets a base ,a few lucky ones get the one of choice, but the majority find themselves in a foreign country where they have to settle virtually without any support whatsoever from the company.
-if they are lucky enough not to be transferred elsewhere without notice (like the VLC guys) loosing their rent deposits or having to move the whole family to another country and find an international school for their kids right in the middle of the school year then they start line flying
-line flying for an F/O consists generally of 1 or 2 days ON and 3 or 4 STBY days during which a BRK pilot makes no money but still has to be available, pay his rent, his bills, his training loans and eventually take care of his family; not unusual to find yourself flying 40 hours/month which translates into 4000 euros gross/month which becomes less than 3000 after tax (now consider paying back 28K for the type rating, probably even more for their basic training, the rent, the bills, the car park, the uniform,some sort of health insurance, a little loss of license insurance, the car,the hotel when going to the sim or when sent out of base....let alone supporting a family).
-Let's say one manages to survive (most do, FR is full of nice guys/girls who love their jobs and give it all they have to succeed) and after some years he gets his command upgrade (bonded) just to find himself on a lower payscale than the other captains for 1 year and also sent away to another base after say 3 or 4 years he had settled into the one he was operating from
Captains:
-generally arrive from other airlines (for many different reasons) with lots of experience and already typed.
-they usually get asked their preferred base but only a handful get it, the rest are sent far from home in one of the many bases to find out that they don't even have a 5/4 roster but a 5/3 like the new italian bases.
-many end up opting for a floating BRK contract and start living like gypsies (organizing their own travels/hotels/meals/transoptation) hoping that way to be able to get home more often while waiting to be finally transferred to their base of choice.
-some wait for years and are told the waiting list for their specific base is very long, just to find out for instance that a newly upgraded Captain has just been sent there
-they don't have the same problem as the F/O's with low flying hours because they easily max out the yearly limits (900 hours) and make around 130K gross which equals 6800 euros net/month (excluding car park,uniform,hotels,car,bills,mortgage,family,health insurance,loss of licence etc etc)
Both Capt's and F/O's have either a FR contract that can vary in T&C's from base to base or a BRK 5 years renewable contract that could be terminated at any time.
I am very aware of the fact that what I wrote can for some be an exaggeration but for others could also sound quite mild too; this is just to let people know that as there are people fat and happy with what they have in EMA like our colleague ATS there are also many people all across the network who are unhappy enough to look for CHANGE.
Especially when they are fully aware they are working for the most successful airline around.
It would take very little effort to make this company one of the best places to work for, the BALPA campaign is just a way to voice our concerns and hopefully the starting point of a new era in which we will be finally able to sit down with the bosses and talk both about financial growth and the well being of those who make that growth possible.
Will it be a tough game?Yes it will probably be, but it's worth trying because the alternative is the status quo.