SR71 - At easyJet it is not 'every man for himself'. Indeed, compared to what is unfolding at BA/BMI, our takeovers of GB Airways ang Go were positively gentlemanly. Everyone kept their positions, including Training Captains. Many people at Go received massive payouts and the GB guys got varying degrees of compensation deals. On one hand the more senior GB captains ended up on a lower salary, but offsetting that numerous GB FOs are now captains who would not have been under their previous employer. Not having a seniority list proved a great blessing as it was one less thing to fight over. No takeover or merger is perfect, and ours were no exceptions, but in retrospect they went about as well as any of these events ever do.
There is no doubt that if you are a BMI pilot then the current situation seems both unfair and very depressing. It may indeed be the case that BMI management have created the effective destruction of their own company. Nonetheless, that is hardly the fault of BA pilots, who not unreasonably will take the view that is someone else's problem. Having been on the receiving end of a company bankruptcy with all the fears and anxieties that generates, I have nothing but sympathy for the BMI pilots. However, I also fully understand the reasons why the BA pilots will not budge an inch. I also have to observe that were the tables reversed, the BMI pilots would not budge an inch either. The bottom line is that if your company goes up the spout, your seniority, alas, counts for nothing - nor should it, if that would disadvantage the current employees of your new company.