I personally take no offence whatsoever at Leo's post. His undying and unabashed devotion to his beloved master, the arch-leprechaun himself should serve as a warning to us all about what could be round the corner if Ryanair gain dominance at Gatwick.
To all those with a negative take on my position, you are all of course entitled to such views. I have made it quite clear that I would support BALPA unequivocally in any strike. Nonetheless, I strongly believe that a strike is in no one's interests and is definitely avoidable. As Leo so alarmingly points out, talk of strikes would be disastrous for forward bookings and this is not the way forward. All easyJet pilots will have received a very interesting personal e-mail from Andy Harrison today, and without divulging the details on a public forum we should give credit where credit is due. Can you imgaine Michael O'Leary ever sending such an e-mail to his pilots? I don't think so. I personally interpret this e-mail as an admission of past failings and a genuine desire to work together. We could be churlish and throw it back in his face - to do such a thing would, in my judgement, be foolish in the extreme. As I have said repeatedly, we are not going to get what we want in total, but we are going to claw back some of the lost ground. I find myself agreeing with significant parts of AH's logic and am encouraged at his willingness to recognise his part in the breakdown in communication that has occurred. He knows that we simply have to work together and so, frankly, should we. We have a number of pressing issues, and I in no way want to underestimate how big these are.
I still do not understand why our crew costs are going up - it just makes no sense to me. Added to that the biggest problem we face is the staggering loss in fuel hedging. I am appalled at the treatment of our cabin crew and junior pilots on temporary contracts. These issues have to be addressed. Nonetheless, we should not in any way underestimate the pressures on our business and make this work. All I ask from our management is that they are reasonable - if they continue down a route of 'in-yer-face' attacks on all of our futures we will have a disaster. We nonetheless should embrace the conciliatory words of Andy Harrison and only consider strike action a last resort. Maybe at last he is seeing the value of working with us rather than against us - if he is then we need to encourage that at every opportunity.