What are these 'old' Ts &Cs - (Can of worms)

[Professional Amateur]

PPRuNers,

So I continue to see posts about how terrible the Ts and Cs are these days and how it's a 'race to the bottom' so I pose this question:

What are these old and excellent Ts & Cs that are oft referred to but never really detailed?

I know this will open up an awful can of worms but I ask this as a genuine question. What was it like?

What were the best bits? how much was the pay? What is better now?

[172_driver]

- A gross salary that has not evolved in line with market prices.
- Less generous pension plans
- Less generous loss of license
- Longer working days/less days off

To mention a few things

[Capt Scribble]

A salary, rather than an hourly rate. A type rating provided by the company.

[wiggy]

What are these old and excellent Ts & Cs that are oft referred to but never really detailed?

Flag carrier, "Then" is early 90's ( Yes, an outlier but a job some still aspire to)

Then: Average Senior Line Captain earning a gross salary that would be well above 200K sterling in today's money.
Now: Probably average well below 200K ( not pleading poverty, but ties in with previous comment made by 172 driver that " ...gross salary that has not evolved in line with market prices".)

Then: Senior Captains retiring on Final Salary pensions of close to, if not greater, 100K.
Now: Those joining now probably won't get a pension anywhere close to even half or even a third of that.

Then: Long haul pilots flying around 500- 600 hours per annum (sometimes at the expense of longer slips, which to be fair could have there advantages, depending on where you were and who you were with....), but even so more days at home back in the day than nowadays.
Now: More like 800-900 per annum now. Vast majority of slips now 24/48 hours (which to be fair again suits some)

Then: Slip hotels generally used to be 4 star or better in city centre/on beach as appropriate.
Now: More likely to Prem Inn or similar standard at airport or outskirts of town.

Plus lots of other little non financial nuggets that I'd list under "conditions", such as car park a short walk from crew report ( gone), a uniform stores that you could actually walk into without an appointment and pick up items as required (gone), admin staff who had the time to help out with admin (gone), rather than being so hasseled they only have time to point you towards the nearest PC....

Now I'm not saying any of the above was sustainable into the noughties but you did ask what had changed!!!...

[Meikleour]

CX early 80's - 70hrs/month block, 8 weeks annual leave! Travel fund. Salary of three times my former UK salary and max tax rate of 15%
Plus no bonding in fact a joining grant given to "help settle in"!

[MaverickPrime]

I was watching an old programme from circa 1992, I was still in my nappies when it was produced so I can only report what I seen! It followed a BA 747-200 crew. The Captain was interviewed saying he was at the peak of his career stating his salary, including flight and duty pay, was £81,000.

So, I logged on to the BoE website for kicks and ran it through the inflation calculator. Bit of a crude exercise I'll concede, however.....

Assuming BA have increased their pay in line with inflation since then, a Captain today at the peak of his BA career should be earning circa £166,000?

Remember, this was 1992 'the good old days'. The same Captain also complained about his Ts&Cs, said people in other professions were much better paid.

Although, the narator said that crews were always booked into a 4/5 star hotel down route and the Captain was always put up in a suite.....

[RexBanner]

That documentary was from 1990 IIRC. (If you're referring to Inside British Airways which I'm almost certain you are). Came up in my interview that one!

The Captain wasn't for one minute moaning about his salary, he was responding to a direct question about whether he was overpaid to which he simply pointed out those professions that were better remunerated.

[wiggy]

The Captain was interviewed saying he was at the peak of his career stating his salary, including flight and duty pay, was £81,000.

Did he say how many hours he flew that month??:8

TBH that number sounds a bit low vs. other accounts I heard, though some of the v. high earners at BA would have been trainers and/or senior enough to corner the more lucrative trips/rosters. There was certainly much more polarisation across payscales in BA back in the early 90's than there is now.

[Stone Cold II]

That very programme is on YouTube. Think it was simply called 'Airline' on BBC2, nothing to do with what was the easyJet programme.

[MaverickPrime]

Yes its on youtube somewhere. I think the context of the programme was more to do with how automation was increasing in flight and they were suggesting that pilots should perhaps be paid less in lieu. They covered the 747-400 which was due to enter service then and it obviously had no flight engineer. There was a mouthy aussie ATCO towards the end saying pilots were overpaid bla bla.

Interesting though on the automation front, we still need two pilots now just as much as then IMHO. Even watched an interview between Michael O'Leary and his share holders recently, of all the people who you think would want to do away with pilots, he said that he couldn't see it happening in his lifetime :confused:

If BA salaries are still worth what they were then, fair play to the BA guys. :D Although from what I hear all the time now, you obviously have to work/slave a lot harder for your money either way.

[Piltdown Man]

Old T's & C's were relative. You were close to the top of the list your country's top earners. You worked until 55 and had a bloody good pension. You, your family and friends flew first class for next to nothing. You had enough days of to recover and when on long trips could take your wife along to enjoy a stay in a swish hotel down route.

Now? Ermm.. Where do we start. Crew meals? Uniform? Pension? HOTAC? Basing? Rostering? Pay? Job security? etc.


PM

[WX Man]

It's not just our industry; it's every industry.

But don't relate it to money, hours worked etc: relate it to what you can do with the money that you earn, and how much time off you get to do it.

I have a friend who is the IT manager for quite a well known UK company. He works at the head office in London and reports directly to the board of directors. 30 years ago, he would have been able to live in a detached house in suburban London, have 2 kids at private school and possibly support his wife to be a stay-at-home mum. Now? No f*cking chance. Both of them have to work, kids at the local state school. Granted, they're not in a 2-up, 2-down, but they're certainly not in the kind of house that someone in that position would have been in a few years ago.

It's a combination of more hours worked, plus less remuneration for those hours, plus higher cost of living.

Economic "expansion" has been funded by cheap debt. Taking it full circle, what this does is it puts a lot of pressure on those further down the pile to underwrite the increasingly lavish lifestyles of those at the top...

Having spent most of my life thinking that I was one of the lucky ones, it's only in the last few years that I've realised that I'm actually one of the less unlucky ones!

[Permafrost_ATPL]

All this negativity! Cheer up everyone, thanks to the trickle down effect we'll all be rich soon. OK maybe not tomorrow, but definitely next year. Or the year after. Keep repeating it. Next year. Trickle down. All rich. :}:}:}

[RAT 5]

Next year. Trickle down. All rich.

The world has been turned on its head because all I see is the wealth gushing UP not down. The fat cats, bankers & *ankers have feathered their nest and laugh all the way to their bloated accounts as the rest of us suffer and grind it out.

[gatbusdriver]

I remember the days we used to get dry cleaning vouchers.....now that was a proper job.

[RAT 5]

I remember the days of debating is your glass half full or half empty: now I just wish I could afford a glass.