The RAF have made a load of aircrew redundant to save money - nothing to do with numbers or anytning else - they could have 'held' for however long - as has happened in the past.
So, the RAF now need to go to MP's and explain that they are paying huge FRI's for the same reason they made people redundant. It is simple - they say to MP's 'We made people redundant because we have no money to train, and we need to pay FRI's because we have no money to train'. They explain that a chap approaching an option (38,44 etc), or 5 years on PAS etc - is getting 250-300k because that is less than a tenth of the cost of training his replacement if he leaves., It is plain numbers. Forget (as others have mentioned) experience etc - the Gov't are really thick, and MP's and senior officers care onlty about appearance, about what will get them (re)elected or promoted - we all know this. It is about money - senior officers patently don't care about the people who work for them - that much is obvious from the self-serving and constantly defeatist decisions that they make - but here is a 'win'. They can SAVE money and make the RAF more effective by paying a bunch of money to retain their best pilots and avoid (for the time being!) training their replacements.
FRI's , if correctly aimed, will save millions. Unfortunately, manning will be the ones taking the shot.
Last edited by chopabeefer; 24th Jul 2011 at 14:21.