fade to grey - whatever your particular angst towards easyJet, the travelling public would not seem to support your view. In March 2012 (the last month for which Monarch published stats), Monarch carried 249,646 passengers on scheduled services. In the same month easyJet carried 4,629,241 passengers. Perhaps they may be doing more right than would initially be apparent to you.
I feel a sense of great sadness that a significant number of easyJet flexicrew pilots have got up and left to join Monarch. I stand by my view that it is a risky move, but genuinely wish them success in their new company. As anyone who has been around aviation knows, there is very little genuine making of your own luck. The moves you make seem good or bad at the time, but are rarely what you expected or intended. My gut feeling is that Monarch are not the wondrous rescuers of the poor and needy that they are being touted as here, nor is their future as bright as some of their employees would wish to think. Nonetheless, I am utterly frustrated at easyJet's attitude and I recognise that we have created this situation.
I would commend the wise words of Wee Weasley Welshman who invariably has great insight on these and other matters. He would contend that ultimately this is an issue of supply and demand. In essence these young cadets have by their very presence priced experienced pilots out of jobs and thought they had done well. Alas, they are finding out that the very quality (i.e. cheap to employ) that got them their job is the very same one that is forcing them to move on. A hard-nosed businessmen (of whom there are a number in senior positions at easyJet), might hold a radical view on this subject. He might say that cadets are two a penny and why should they change how things are done when it is like taking candy from kids? Basically, they can offer to charge people to work for us and still they would come in their hundreds. There is an infinite supply of desperate young men and women who would do virtually anything and sign any contract to wake up in the cockpit of an Airbus. Given that scenario, why would a business want to pay big money for them when they will effectively pay us to let them fly? I do not subscribe to that view myself, but it would seem to be the inevitable consequence of flooding a market with low-houred pilots, most of whom will never actually have a job. Those that do can be replaced overnight by 10 more will work for even less than their predecessors. Given that situation, it is almost impossible to maintain terms and conditions. My hearty congratulations to Monarch for behaving so honourably, but I fear they are in a very small minority of companies.