Captplaystation,
I'm not with easyjet, or the Irish outfit. And while I agree wholeheartedly with the "message" of this thread, nothing will change.
My experience of pilots (and I've been one for a while now) has shown me that whilst in the main, we're a decent set of chaps, we just do not have the stomach for a fight.
Let's face it, the CTC cadets are not being "forced" to sign any deal whatsoever. Any wannabee, be it easyjet, ryanair, flybe or whoever is in general, a young guy/girl, usually of above average intelligence working hard through university/flight school to pursue their dream of becoming a commercial pilot. And therein lies the problem. They're following a "Dream". And we all know how hard we had to work to get that first job.
So the flight schools/airlines have tapped into this psyche. And put their own slant on it. It's simply called Capitalism. Supply/demand/market forces whatever. Provide a product, be it apples/oranges/pears or an A319 type rating and put a price on it. Lots of people prepared to pay quoted price equals "brilliant, lets put the price up". No one prepared to pay equals, "
, fun while it lasted, lets think of another way to make money".
I sincerely hope that I'm proven wrong. But I believe that in five to ten years time, EZY, RYR et al will have dragged this industry to a low never before witnessed.
But for as long as there is a "demand" there will be a supplier. Unless of course, safety is
proven to have been compromised and the authority's end up doing what the pilots should have done years ago. But we lacked the stomach for a fight, or indeed the foresight to see where these pay to fly schemes would lead us.
This situation that the current professional pilot finds himself/herself in is entirely of their own making. The new guys for signing up to these deals and the old hands for not grounding the birds the moment this nonsense started about 15 years ago.
How are we going to fight back now? To me it seems a wee bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. But I would love to be proven wrong. I would love to see a well organised campaign of action that would bring about a permanent change of direction.
Over to ALPA/BALPA/IALPA/European Cockpit Association etc