NM - I will absolutely support the crew at EMA. I have made it clear that the figures I have quoted are directly from a senior manager. He says they are correct and I am not in a position to say one way or another. I am not in any way embarrassed to have quoted him because he is not at liberty to appear on here himself. As readers of my previous posts will know, I am not in the slightest awkward at calling a spade a spade when our Lords and Masters blow it. If I could possibly give my own opinion briefly - I too am most concerned at the situation at EMA and LTN, with NCL and others possibly in the future firing line. I also believe that with a bit of willpower being employed, easyJet could and should have invested more definitely in EMA. Allowing RYR into there unchallenged was a huge error. The issue for our management to ponder is that, whether you like it or not, RYR are able to make money there when we are not. There are a whole host of reasons for that, and by no means all of that is down to crew costs. Nonetheless, I have difficulty arguing with the fact that we can only get 620 hours a year out of our crews when we need 900. That has to be addressed, and I hope that BALPA will offer that facility to the management in the case of regional bases in the coming discussions. I am a realist and know that it is just so vital for us to make easyJet more economical than the opposition. That does NOT mean sacrificing our lives to make a few top managers rich - it does mean being flexible over rostering when the need arises.
Callsign Kilo - thank you for your realistic appraisal of what will happen at RYR in the coming months. There is no way that your company will keep flying at the summer rate over the winter - no doubt it will all be blamed on airport charges, credit card companies, the UK government, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. You have the same pressures as everyone else - in some cases it is better to keep aircraft on the ground rather than fly them. The fact remains that there are wafer thin margins in the regions and to pretend otherwise would be foolish. My heart goes out to the EMA employees, but the battle will only be won in an economic argument that presents credible options to keep EMA open. I am 100% for fighting this, but an emotional argument over the lovely employees we have will not cut it - we must provide concrete and credible solutions to the issues we face.