I have faith in the BALPA reps on this issue.
The main problem with FlyBE would be that in the past, the company traditionally has had a rapid turnaround of pilots. The result is that for every Captain or FO who leaves the company, there would be a non-stop stream of pilots on tap from the flight schools and FOs ready for the upgrade from within the ranks.
This recession has effectively blighted the entire issue now though - for the last 2 1/2 years, the work force has remained more or less the same, and as a result, people are not progressing through the payscales at the rate that the company intended. So we have a situation whereby a lot of pilots, who either would have moved on, gone onto the jet, got commands etc... have been stuck in rank. As a result, all that has really happened is that we have crawled rather slowly up the ranks of the payscale... Now, as FlyBE has always had that rapid form of pilot recruitment in its mind, it now faces a problem with a largely discontented workforce, who cannot move anywhere (Turboprop hours not counting, no other airlines recruiting etc...). As a result, it's high time the company addressed this issue.
As a pilot, I do enjoy the work for the airline. The routes are varied, the crews are good fun, and the Dash is a tart to fly. I'm sure most of the other crews feel the same about this. FlyBE has the potential to be a great career airline for those that want it. But at the moment, it is very much stuck in the regional UK mentality.
The results that PaulJ1957 posted are incredibly interesting. It does show a company that are performing ahead of all expectations throughout the recession. The money made in Greece is clearly tied up in the complicated terms, with the hope that it will be overlooked. But with the analysis there, it can be seen that actually, if the pre-tax profit is only £5.7 million, there is probably quite a lot more locked up in and hidden away in EBITDAR.
Just my two cents on this... It will be interesting to see what BALPA do about it.