James,
I'm not BRAL, but mainline and I feel it's appropriate to reply to your post as I'm equally frustrated by endless "management" waste.
Rather than an atmosphere of "them and us" i.e. BRAL/Manx/Brymon vs BA mainline, I think we need to concentrate on putting the pilot workforce first and put pressure on BALPA to use more modern tactics to persuade, at board level, that the culture needs to change.
I have recently had need to speak with several of our lower level managers, and they struck me as being most ineffective. As an airline BA is still suffering from having been a nationalised industry and we really need to get rid of the deadwood and have a more modern approach.
Perhaps we should waste hundreds of managers man hours, corporate office space and executive catering trying to decide the way forward . . . . Oh, yes we've just done that - Future Size and Shape. Sadly the reason that over management was not addressed as an issue, was because they were precisely the people that were deciding our future.
No, what we really need to do is get BALPA to go to the board and point out the way we all feel, after all that's why we have a union. Perhaps then, the airline will stop haemorrhaging cash and you might be more content with the airline you work for. I know I would - either that or go over to the dark side and become a manager yourself and try to change the airline from within. However with past experience I wouldn't recommend the latter.
Good luck with you future within BA - I think we all need it.
Mini mums