air command, 'not happy' is not adequate statement
The career progression stated at the interviews is not what is now being touted by
VB pilots (our own management refuses to answer the questions). The quote that anthill posted was not given to interviewees (at least not me or anyone else I have asked). Recently 6 PB FO positions were advertised internally, a few more than that applied, two CRFOs with NG ratings were offered positions, however there was no right of return (hardly career progression if you can't come back) and the remaining applicants (CRFOs and FOs) could not be released by VA??!! No explanation as to why.
I would take it up with management but we don't seem to have any. All the decisions seem to be made at
VB and they won't speak to us. We were told that
VB pilots did not want to come across to VA at the start. The agreement for commands to be offered on 4/7th of the ordered aircraft whilst not made obvious to us it was discovered relatively early.
My winge is that
now the
VB pilots (and a few twisted souls at VA who began their long haul careers with 1500hrs as 2nd officers / cadets and spent quite a while there) are pushing the idea that CRFOs and FOs need to go to
VB to "gain experience" so that they can come across in front of us who took the risk of a new start up. Clearly this is unnecessary for a large proportion of CRFOs and FOs. What experience will
VB pilots bring to VA ops that can't be learned at VA by the current CRFOs and FOs?
If most of us had known this we would not have bothered joining VA. At the time
VB (along with everyone else) was recruiting heavily. The fastest path would have been to join
VB/NJ/SW and by now we would only have a short time to go to acquire the 1000hrs (I was corrected by Beeroclock but yet to confirm it). More to the point if the only way to progress is to leave then those with experience probably will as soon as a viable option appears.
Its a pity air command that you seem to think that VA is hemorrhaging money. As I understand it, it is loosing less money than was planned upon. I don't think anyone on these forums predicted the implosion of the US and European banking systems. So how could you expect
VB to, once
VB started down this path is was impossible to back out without bankrupting
VB.
I know its been pointed out earlier but, it costs money to start a new business.
VB was not profitable in its first few years why would you expect VA to be? More than half the 160m loss was due to management stuff ups (fuel hedging / currency exchange) not VA. Loads have been good but in the end they need more aircraft to expand the business to defray the start up and overhead costs. The only other alternative is for
VB to grab more market share without reducing yields.