OK - last thing I want to do is piss on a hornets nest - please don‘t think I‘m down on BALPA. The point of my last post was: Their whole raison d’etre is to accurately represent the voice of the their members - their members are REALLY pissed, therefore so too should BALPA be - instead they’ve been wishy washy on this issue. Hell its been bubbling away in one guise or another since before I left in 2008.
Now, in BA BALPA do brilliant work - I cant sing their praise high enough. Continually, and I’ll say it again continually, keeping their finger on the pulse of the pilot community. Barely a week goes by when there aren’t updates or surveys from them - what have your meals been like recently, what do you think of this, or that etc etc. They do sterling work.
But I stand by my statement regarding their handling of this issue - its been very much sub par. So too really are the meals you’re confronted with each day. BALPA see to it that its contractual at BA that crew meals must be ‘…to a first class standard…’ ie serve it up to the ladies and gents paying thousands to go to NY and they should say ‘that’s lovely, thank you’. Its scripture, so it is written, so it is done! Now I grant you sometimes (though rarely) I scratch my head and think: first class where - Ivory Coast Airways? But I think back to the manky 1000 calorie chicken salad special, packet of McVities and Daily Lee Dunkers at Flybe and quickly whoof it down thanking my lucky stars. Youre pissed at the crew food - so too should BALPA be (that’s their job) and yet fast forward more than two years since I left and its still being bemoaned on this very site.
Soon after I join Nigels gang the company crunched the numbers and said that as an airline we had about 100 pilots too many and made no secret that redundancies were being considered - crap my pants I did, I don’t mind admitting it. However, BALPA were bloody first rate - did their own number crunching, came up with proposals, took surveys on them, liased constantly with the company and eventually it all went away like a bad dream - VR was offered (80ish took it), a one year pay freeze was agreed upon with share options for the remaining pilot community further down the line depending on xyz. All done in the space of about 5 months.
Now, I have huge affection for my former colleagues at Flybe. And because I do the level of service they should expect from BALPA (and receive it) should be no less than what we get at BA. Afterall all members pay the same percentage from their wages regardless of company - and given the labour intensity at Flybe I would say my friends there work at lot harder than I do pound for pound.
Enough time has passed on this issue - nearing a thousand days minimum (since I’ve been gone) and yet actually very little has changed. The average FO however in the same time frame (paying about 30 quid a month) has paid just shy of a grand in subs - well shoot me down for saying it, but he might as well have put a match to his money - the foods still dire, the wage still below industry standard, scheduling still leaving everyone knackered - or have I been looking at another version of this website for 2 years?