As someone who has served many years in BA, as a second flying career, I have worked hard but have always enjoyed my job and the people I have flown with.
There is now though a very sinister undertone to the rhetoric which has convinced me that the Sun is very rapidly setting on one of the most respected and aspirational positions in aviation.
This is what someone from the BALPA CC said recently:
Challenges ahead.
NAPs. Changes to contracting out means BA NIC contributions increase. BA will ask to close NAPs.
EASA. BA's opening position is they are unlikely to allow B2B's due FMS (not FRMS). Bye-bye to commuting.
SH business review. No secret, BA want more, much more. And none of it "joined up" OneTeam.
Hotels. BA want premier inn class hotels and airport hotels to be included in bidding process.
Training out-sourced.
2014 - BA over-budget and want further significant cost savings. THIS YEAR.
2015 - IAG Project DXXXXX. "Structural change". Guess what that might mean? IAG have recently moved Hotels, and Supply/Cost board from BA into IAG.
UAV/Astraea - single pilot cruise ops. BACC reps already met with ASTRAEA program director to discuss. How many pilots would BA need if it moved to single pilot ops in the cruise? Do you know aircraft like the 777 already have a FAIL OPERATIONAL autopilot capability in the cruise as well as on ILS? CPCLC beyond line of sight comms? Do you know a virtual certification process for UAV in commercial airspace has been approved?
There is little doubt that 'IAG', which is in effect Willy Walsh's office in Waterside, have determined to decimate the pilot contract, and deliver Ryanair T&Cs in the increasingly near future.
The airline that I once loved to work for has become a very unhappy place to be. You can forget drunken nights out in Barcelona. These days you'll be lucky if anyone's got the energy for a quick one round the corner. More and more you find individuals who are utterly exhausted as they run into the various statutory limits, including 900hrs a year.
You'd imagine the pilot management might have cottoned on to the climate of bitterness and recrimination, but in a recent thread on the company forum, 1200 posts and 200,000 views extracted virtually no response from the very manager who opened it.
Anecdotally, the chief pilot was approached as to what he was going to do with the plummeting morale amongst his department. His response was to ask what relevance morale has for the bottom line. In short, he couldn't give a
. A similar question to the board solicited a response that there is less than 5% churn amongst new fleet crew, and virtually none amongst the pilots. Industry norms amongst other customer service players would consider 5% as a good indication that staff are happy. Hence until the board see the empty recruitment in-boxes and the cancelled flights due no pilots, nothing is going to change anytime soon.
I'm deeply saddened that it's come to this, but in what was always going to be a very challenging programme - instead of supporting the flight crew as they kept the show on the road, they've smuggled through permanent change under the cover of temporary alleviations, sanctioned by what appears to be a weak and naïve union management.
I would never suggest to any aspiring and ambitious future pilot that they should avoid BA, I was once one of you. But I want you to know what's happening in this company, and how you will be regarded by a rapacious, cynical management who resent you and your profession.