Not a trapper but have >10 years service. Last years £118k included £10k of FRV payment. This years pay rise plus £3k worth of free shares means means I expect to see a similar amount emptied into the coffers of Weasley Towers this year. Additionally the special dividend payment on the company shares is worth over £8k to someone like me whose been in the schemes since they started in 2005.
There's plenty to criticise and moan about but the pay is not near the top of the list once you're past the flexicrew stage. All FO's once they get onto a permanent contract in the UK gross >£50k and they will have had the opportunity to go sausage side and turn that into >€90k if they wanted.
It is tough in the early days and with a massive loan around your neck. No doubt about that. But the destination
is worth the effort financially.
There really is no excuse for this in an airline like easy which is well unionised.
Ryanair are taking of £30k off people to get into a Brookfield contracting job with them. You want me to give up pay to go on strike that will deny my employer the chance to offer the new market rate for labour? Why don't the CTC pilots themselves join BALPA, or any union, and threaten to go on strike themselves unless their terms are improved by their employer?
If there is a big queue of people willing to handover a six figure sum to land a job then there is no way you or I is going to find a way to stop a company from taking their money. In fact what is the morality of me interfering in a legal contract entered into willingly between employer and would-be employee? Would I have been glad the BA pilots went on strike to stop Go-Fly offering me my first airline job?
The world moves on. Conditions are lower but then that is the same for many professions. There's a big world of very bright, very capable people out there and if I was still earning senior barristers wages in exchange for 450hrs a year and a new jag every other then, frankly, it wouldn't be sustainable.
Sad but also true.
WWW
ps Just received word that some external recruitment will soon be advertised for the new base in Lisbon. Initially two aircraft and operating on a two year fixed term contract basis. Another twist.