Hurrah for our CC
Our concerns about Scope.
1. If we accepted the proposal, we would be accepting that two pilots operating a CX aircraft would be doing the same job but one would be significantly better off than the other. (Without going into detail you will be aware that BA pilots enjoy better salaries, pension schemes, health care, travel and insurance benefits, bonuses preferential bidding and of course, retire at 55). We considered this to be a recipe for industrial disharmony if ever there was one. (You only have to look at the friction caused by the mixing of BAR cabin crew with our colleagues in MAN and BHX. It does not get much more stupid than that).
2. The idea of drawing any line based upon aircraft size was flawed. Whilst present market conditions might make the divisions proposed logical, who is to say that given changed circumstances it might only become economic to operate aircraft larger than 100 seats? (Look at the low cost operators - all operating 140 seaters for example.)
Yet CX would forever have surrendered its pilots' rights to fly anything larger. Referring again to the American experience, one has had the farcical situation of companies removing seats to stay within the constraints of Scope agreements. One also has to address the fact that our 146s straddle the dividing line already.
3. The idea that BA would have the right to impose its own pilots (the suggestion has been made one CX P1 for one BA P1) on each 70 to 99 seater operated by CX is highly unattractive to many of our pilots who might see “their” seat being taken by a BA pilot when they themselves either had no ambition to join BA or were otherwise not considered “suitable” to do so.
4. Many if not most of us fly in a regional airline as a matter of choice because we like the flying and the ability to live and work in a particular community. It is a lifestyle choice and for many, the prospect of operating long haul from LHR or LGW is of no appeal. The lack of appreciation of this has been a recurring theme throughout these discussions.
5. It has been made very clear to us that BA would retain the right to determine exactly which of you met their criteria as to “suitability” for transfer under the scheme into BA. In particular, they placed a substantial question mark against the ability of our turboprop pilots to meet their selection requirements. It was also far from clear that anyone from a turboprop fleet would be able to bid into BA under such a scheme.
Base training costs, Zero Flight time training qualifying requirements and historical conversion failure rates were some of the many barriers that were being held against even our most experienced pilots (thereby rendering such individuals as “unsuitable”). This is all the more extraordinary considering that BA put their own pilots, some with 250 hrs straight onto the flight-deck of medium sized jets.
6. The whole question of preservation and or extension of pension rights within the context of Scope is of itself a major and highly complex issue, which had not even begun to be considered.
Who might have benefited from Scope?
At its inception, the scheme would be open to suitably qualified jet Captains. Turboprop pilots were expressly excluded.
It is likely that the pre qualification would be at least three years jet P1. Of course anyone approaching 55 would be excluded.
A bid into BA would be a once in a lifetime bid and would be likely to have to be non-specific as to type, seat or base. (It is conceivable that a CX pilot on a 70 to 99 seater could end up flying that very aircraft he had been flying in CX but on BA terms!)
A quota system matching BA pilots into CX and vice versa would have to be devised.
(Bearing in mind that the BACC are trying to impose similar Scope deals on other franchises and, in the meantime, BA continue to recruit and train their own pilots and are likely to increase the Compulsory Retirement age, one has to ask oneself exactly where all the opportunities are going to come from? In reality it is your CCs view that the opportunities would be very few and far between.)
Our conclusions about Scope.
As a result of the debates we came to the conclusion that the proposals put to us might form the basis for developing discussions further with the BACC but that if Scope were to be effective it must be based on a partnership of two companies and not one company serving the interests of another.
In our opinion, the outline proposals put to us were seriously flawed and if the matter were to go any further we would need time to go away and starting with a clean sheet of paper, develop a concept of how we might see an arrangement working and what CX pilots might want out of it.
The fundamental principal to be established however before we could take the debate any further was that any Scope agreement “MUST OPEN UP ACCESS TO BA TO ALL, IN A FLOW BASED PURELY ON SENIORITY AND WITH NO OTHER DISCRIMINATION”.
Unfortunately this principle has not found favour with BA Management who continue to assert that they must have the right to discriminate against certain categories of pilot, in particular turboprop.
Much criticism has been made of BALPA and many of you will be very unhappy about the recent shenanigans over the election of the General Secretary and the perception that BALPA has lurched towards being seen as the British Airways Line Pilots Association again or that we are being “stitched up” with the connivance of BALPA to agree a Scope agreement which satisfies BALPA’s 3000 BA members to the detriment of our 450.
You can be absolutely certain that your CC is aware of the potential conflicts which have arisen and has vehemently asserted its right to an independent view to represent the interests of its members notwithstanding that frictions may thereby have between caused.
Most unfortunately vociferous and powerful elements within the BACC have latched onto the RJ issue as one to attach their demands for a Scope agreement and, in blunt terms, we were faced with the imposition of very short timescales within which to conclude terms.
They further told BA that if they did not make substantial progress to concluding an agreement by the end of November then no BACX RJ training was to commence and that none of our pilots, not even those displaced under FS&S would be allowed to fly the RJ 100s. (Some might see this as akin to a form of blackmail).
Previously, our understanding as to the deployment and utilisation of RJs was that up to 50 seats would be made available to our FSS displaced pilots without pre-condition, any BA pilot wishing to bid onto the fleet could do so on protected BA terms and the rest of the aircraft would be deployed once we had come to an agreement as to the terms on which they were to be flown.
Although your CC was very unhappy to learn of the package offered to BA pilots relative to CX to fly the RJ (approximately £1000 per month more than a CX pilot plus all the BA benefits of final salary pension, early retirement etc. etc.) we nonetheless felt that the overriding importance was to get our displaced pilots up and running on the fleet. Aspirational bidding onto the fleet by CX pilots was something to be dealt with later.
That is how matters were proceeding and we were awaiting information as to course dates when BACC made it clear to BA in unambiguous terms that not one of our pilots would be allowed anywhere near an RJ unless and until their demands on Scope were met.
This threat, when coupled with an unrealistically short time scale has forced your CC to go away and re-visit the fundamentals of where we consider your interests lie. We have also been considering what sort of relationship we should be looking at developing with BA consistent with the objective of securing better terms and conditions for you as well as the chances of career progression without yet further discrimination prejudice and division.
We should place on record here that your CC has made consistent attempts over the last few months to obtain four way meetings to include BA and BACX management as well as BACC in order to progress the debate. We have been persistently stonewalled and left out whilst all other parties have clearly been developing the concepts to suit their interests. It is only very recently that we were able to obtain access to this debate, after pressure from ourselves and BACC, and provide input.
We share your outrage at the “jig to our tune or else” threat from the BACC and at the same time are left wondering just what BA and CX management were doing going ahead and promising courses to you when, in reality, they had absolutely no business to do so. Our respective managements have been well aware of the industrial issues attached to the RJs since before the inception of BACX and we consider that they have to a large extent been utterly reckless in proceeding to offer the RJ to you when they knew that they might not be able to deliver on promise.
It will come as no surprise that management will now blame “BALPA” (By that, if they were honest, they would mean the BACC) for this fiasco.
In reality your CC are of the view that given the principal responsibility of your management is to manage and direct the company, the lion’s share of the blame falls squarely with them but, at the same time, we are substantially less than happy that the BACC should have latched on to this issue as a means of securing their broader industrial objectives for better terms and conditions for employment for their members and that earlier understandings have not been delivered upon.
Our response.
It serves no purpose for us to dwell on who is to blame and we have needed to find a way ahead and provide a response to the gauntlet, which had been laid before us.
The choice, which faced us, was stark.
We capitulate and accept that we will enter an agreement under duress, which makes you forever second-class citizens on inferior terms to BA (with a few crumbs of comfort in the guise of a limited number of opportunities for a few to join BA)
Or
We say, “Enough is enough”.
We are fed up with being seen as a convenient dumping ground for BA’s problems and being treated as an under-caste. The giving of final salary pension scheme and full BA terms to our BA cadets without our knowledge is nothing short of an outrage when we have some long served and loyal pilots who will earn scarcely enough in retirement to keep them off state benefits. This revelation in many respects was the last straw.
This CC will not stand by and see you made into second-class citizens. We are all pilots together working ultimately for the same company. We should be treated the same.
The message we delivered accordingly on September 30th was simply this:
“If you want BACX pilots to work together and in harmony with BA, then we should be placed on a common seniority list on common terms with our BA Brothers and Sisters”.
We are pleased to be able to report that, given our rejection of Scope, the BACC are able to associate themselves with the foregoing aspiration.
Understandably BA and BACX management as well as the BACC have all gone away to consult their colleagues and we are expecting to meet with them again in the next few days.