The E170/195
Guys, nobody is ungrateful to Flybe for giving people the chance to achieve this career, providing a bonded type rating and some excellent experience. Neither is anyone suggesting that a turboprop pilot should expect to earn as much as a jet pilot (even if many might argue that a turboprop can be harder to fly). However there are two different issues here:
1. Flybe is moving away from its provincial turboprop roots and becoming a significant pan-European jet operator and major player in the industry. Its pilots fully support the company's lofty ambitions but don't appreciate being taken for fools with a pay freeze last yr, a 0.3% pay rise this year and a complete lack of engagement in BALPA's attempts to improve quality of life here.
2. Having ordered a huge pile of jets the company is now trying to combine the jet and turboprop salaries at the turboprop rate in order to avoid having too many people on the jet scales (which incidentally are low compared to others out there anyway). I would argue that a 195 pilot deserves to be paid the same as an Airbus 319 pilot in Easy but they are about £15k less than that.
This company is becoming a force to be reckoned with - that's for sure, but the their obsession with rostering for maximum working days and ignorance of pay norms is causing many to look elsewhere, and that is rather sad.
Desk-pilot