I'm one of the "Easy six" and would like to clear up a few misconceptions.
1:Yes we were Sun drivers, none were cadets and none did a few months "in the bunk" before redundancy.
2:All offers were for full time positions. No one would have given up a full time position for a part time contract.
3: The basic Pay and Pension benefits at Easy are considerably worse than those offered at VS. One point worth mentioning is that the VS scales are incremental whereas the Easy scale is fixed and is in fact dereasing in real terms.
4: Long time to command. Thats a decision that we have all had to make. However any one contemplating going to easy as an FO should be aware that commands are in the gift of certain individuals, and can be put off indefinatley if you are perceived as not being "orange".This can be for reasons as diverse as refusing to compromise CAP 371 to not wearing a tie in the crew room.
Promises are made and broken very easily. No pun intended.
5: Lifestyle. Its appalling. No one is under any illusion that VS is the promised land. We've all worked there before. However we have all chosen to return and that I think says a great deal.
BTW we did around 3-4 trips per week on Sun usually to Greece/Turkey/Canaries in the summer and 2-3 (sometimes less) in the winter to Spain/Canaries and Israel. It was a great life, people enjoyed it most of the time and moaned as per usual.We all joined VS because we wanted to fly LH at the end of the day.
Some on unpaid leave have found other opportunities and all the best to them. The returning crew that I am in contact with are counting the days until we can get away from Easyjet. And yes, in 12 months we'll all be moaning about Virgin!.