Try buying a house!
If you were earning £70k per year you can get a mortgage of around 3.5x that. So that is say £245,000 from the bank.
Living down south around herts and essex, plus your deposit, you are looking at a nice 2 bed, or ex-council 3 bed for around the £275K mark.
Now lets look at the reality. Banks will only take taxable basic salary. They will not take sector or flight pay EVEN if it is taxable, because it is a variable income that is not guaranteed.
£45K x 3.5 = £157,500 + Deposit = Nice new build 2 bed flat next to Chicago's. Doesn't quite seem the sort of place a Captain with a new family should be aspiring to live. But this is the reality.
I have friends in other airlines that earn more then that BASIC as a first officer. They may not get the massive sector pay, but they DO get DUTY pay of around £5ph for EVERY HOUR THEY ARE AT WORK. That means, if they are out of base, 24 hour pay. If they are in the SIM, they get paid.
Guys, I can only see this getting worse, and especially as the contract workers directive is coming into effect on 1st October 2011. I have no doubts in my mind that all the people on the (old) Brookfield contracts will be pushed off it and onto a FR contract with really bad terms soon. Also, don't forget that the majority of those guys will be Captains as the contract has been in place for some 4 years now.
This is the time if any to make it count. The BRK guys that will be move across need to reject the offer of bad terms and conditions. There are going to be around 300-400 of you, and I can tell you now that is a lot of flights that will not take off if you all stand together and take the stand.
The main problem you will face is the kind of chap I worked with the other day. "I will accept anything they offer me as I have pilot loans and a family to feed. I just need to keep my job what ever they pay"!!
Not turning this into another one of 'those' threads, but things will never change if the guys that are willing to make a stand for the better of everyone, are going to be undercut and stabbed in the back by guys like that.