Welcome back Stan. Nice to see you treading the boards once more after your little holiday in the hole. Lets be nice to each other from now on, shall we? I'd very much like that.
Bravo Slim! Your Magnum Opus to date.
I spend more time than I should wondering why it is that truly good and decent men like Norman continue to be seduced by the hollow promises of BLAPA when, demonstrably, they deliver nothing. In fact less than nothing since they routinely betray the implicit promise of their membership. Standing inert whilst the headless chickens at the
Grand Luton Orangery utilise your CTC rape victims as cabin staff is just the latest in a long line of failures. Remind me Norman, what is a union for exactly? Oh, that’s right, to protect the rights of all members, especially those least able to defend themselves from that most hollow mantra of the whining aviator, bad management. Well, my dear, were that true, you'd have been out on strike ages ago. What is happening to your CTC cadets, or rather, what is about to happen, it utterly despicable. You certainly don’t find that sort of evil on
our side of the Irish Sea. On the contrary, it is you who have established the new nadir, long ago in fact, and you a unionised airline! Gosh.
The word from your beloved BLAPA? "Sorry lads, we sympathise but there's ‘nowt we can do." Were your BLAPA all they claim to be, there wouldn't be a G registered airliner flying above the skies of Britain until this horror story is resolved. But there are, aren't there Norman? Lots of them, and what does that tell us? BLAPA doesn't give a shyte, or rather, they can't.
You write much of the benefits of unity and warn against the dangers inherent in a "divide and conquer" strategy. Have a closer look at BLAPA, Norman. Decentralised, airline specific CC's who are blameless in the event of their (regular) failures since, how does it go again, oh yes "BLAPA are the pilots and the pilots are BLAPA. We're only as strong as our membership permits." Really Norman, do you expect those possessed of a rational mind to accept such shamelessly regurgitated bollocks?
The more rudimentary, reflexive grunts from those of the slack jawed, gravel rash on the knuckles brigade (hello Dim Repa) are at least excusable since they know no better, or as in the case of many colleagues I truly admire, fail to escape the conditioning of their parents generation which is at least explicable within a psychological context, but Norman, you continue to perplex with your blinkered support of a turgid, morally corrupt, broke organisation, who promises everything and delivers nothing. I suggest to you, with the greatest of respect, it is a variation of Stockholm Syndrome where you've come to identify with your captors. And captive you truly are.
BLAPA knows very well that they're the only game in town. They also know that by fostering a sense of fear among the pilots they stand to greatly gain. In a fact not lost among the BLAPA leadership (such as it is), the two principal motivators of human nature are fear and greed. Manipulate those correctly, and you can make us walk on water, even the most reluctant. Shove an electric probe up a horses arse, and if given sufficient electricity, you can teach it to play Canasta. Compliance, then, becomes a question of voltage. Facts not lost upon your unclothed Emperor BLAPA. Do you, sometimes, feel the odd twinge in your prostate, Norman? Nothing to worry about I can assure you, its just BLAPA shoving a few extra volts down the wire.
To paraphrase Primo Levi, a sceptical generation of pilots stands at the threshold of a new order of things, bereft not of ideals but of certainties, indeed distrustful of the grand revealed truth; disposed instead to accept the small truths, changeable from month to month on the convulsed wave of BLAPA manipulation, whether guided or wild.
I do, however, desire to persuade every single pilot at easyJet that the only real hope for our company is a vibrant BALPA fighting on behalf of the pilots against ruthless management.
Your airline is rudderless, Norman, and until
that is resolved with a sound new CEO, be it Brady or Coyle, BLAPA will seek to colonise your collective uncertainly to the benefit of their coffers and at the expense of your faith, trust and hope.