The pay cut was only for people on a Ryanair contract not BRK pilots or the new storm ones, which is everyone now that joins as Ryanair contracts are hens teeth.
5/3 is the norm for a lot of bases in spain and italy and all new bases opening with the exception on the canary islands as the long 2 sector days make it no use as everyone go's out of hours quickly
The 5/3 becomes 5/4 in winter for all of them (i think)
As for getting a change of base! yea good luck, back to the UK is pretty much zero unless your lucky enough to get STN on a summer contract, then back to the back and beyond in winter to do lots of standbys and earn no money
