Chief Brody - your assessment of the 3 types of pilot at flybe would have been broardly correct if you'd written it about 3 or 4 years ago, but since then the recession has brought about a huge demographic shift in the pilot workforce at flybe - Desk Pilot alludes to it when he mentions the 30's and 40's Captains, but lets also include the 20's and 30's first officers as well.
This group, 3 or 4 years ago, didn't give a damn what happened at flybe because they believed that in a year, 18 months, or 2 years, they wouldn't still be here. The recession and the growth of the Pay to Fly phenomenon (which is making people wonder if, when recruitment gets going again, there will be opportunities unless you're prepared stump up multi thousand quid) has brought about a huge attitude change - flybe might be it, at least for the forseeable future, so we'd all better start taking an interest.
The change may not be too noticable at the small island and Celtic fringe bases, where people are happy to live where they live and have an easy life, but is very noticable at the large mainland bases such as BHX, MAN and SOU, where there is a growing feeling of anger and resentment in the crewrooms.
BALPA is far from perfect, but it is what we the membership within the company make it, and for the doubters there are 2 compelling reasons to join now:
Firstly; it is the only path to legal industrial action.
Secondly; we have been assured that when the agreement is announced we, the BALPA members, will be balloted on it - no membership: no vote - so if you're not happy with what's on offer (and I suspect that will be a lot of us), and you're not a BALPA member so you can't vote against it - don't whinge!