Although there were the old guard like yourself who saw no good in any manager, there were many of us who saw great potential for Carolyn McCall and her 'new broom' approach.
Dear Alexander, there never was and never will be a 'new broom' approach.
Be it ol' Ray Webster, be it ol' Andy Harrison, or now good ol' Carolyn McCal: it will
always be the same ol' game of 'good cop versus bad cop.'
It's management squeezing as much out of that orange in bonuses as possible before leaving the sinking ship and letting others clean up the mess with some more empty promises and "project Merlins."
The only thing that changes is the next load of new fresh employees (DEC's and cadets) who believe the latest fairy tale and sign the newest contract that has lower T&C's than that of the person they replace...
Doug is a without doubt a professional moaner who's posts I tend to skip but let's be honest, the Lisbon announcement gives him an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. He's not far off being in the galling position of saying 'I told you so'.
As pilots we get paid to be realists, not to cut corners and to keep the big picture in mind. Do you brief an EO scenario? How many times did you have an EO? Are you a "professional moaner" because you focus
each and every flight on potential problems that will most probably never happen anyway?
I'm not looking for ammunition to prove my point. I don't
need ammunition to prove my point. Just look at the last 5 years and you will
see my point...
In a grand scheme of things I feel sorry for the overall demise of this industry, the cadets who have been misled into forking out thousands and thousands of Pounds/Euro's/Dollars to join an industry that treats them worse every year. Most of all I feel sorry for the TAP Air Portugal pilots who now will have to fight an uphill battle to keep their T&C's because they will directly compete with some orange DEC on a sh!tty contract who's job it is to supervise a 200 hour cadet on some kind of a flexicrew contract making barely enough to make the next interest payment on his enormous loan.
It's a vicious circle of continually lower T&C's where airlines, unions and employees are permanently underbidding each other. The only winners are the bonus grabbing management and the shareholders.
Welcome to the future!
p.s.
He's not far off being in the galling position of saying 'I told you so'.
I already did that years ago:
DEC 2009 Again: welcome to the future!