LOA Cut Again

[FFP]

My LOA has just gone up. Not much consolation I know, but just another side to the story.

(Will have to start filling the swimming pool with notes soon, running out of space in the 6 bed house that's paid and heated / cooled for me )

[[email protected]]

Scuttled, sadly you are being sniped at by those who remember overseas tours (esp RAFG) as places where you had cheap beer and petrol, hardly touched your main wage and brought back a new Merc or BMW every tour.

I suspect you are in Cyprus where the cost of living has gone through the roof since they joined the Euro and where jobs for wives are like rocking horse sh*t. You should not be financially disadvantaged by your posting, no matter where it is.

Oh and if people want to bitch about the sandpit dets, try asking why Australian troops get a 30K Aus dollar operational bonus after every one and we don't!

[high spirits]

Scuttled,
Agreed. Ignore the jealousy of certain bell ends who can't be bothered to find out the facts. You should not be financially disadvantaged, full stop. ISTR another poster mentioning similar. I also know of people who have turned down the opportunity because of this.

Keeping the missus happy is one of the tricky things when serving in HM Forces. It's why so many marriages go down the pan. I for one will not be volunteering for a overseas post as I'm unwilling to be seen off financially by the very people who want me to go abroad. Madness.

Thanks for the warning.

[mosquito077]

Scuttled,

Ignore the vitrolic rubbish, you made a very fair point. The nasty side of me would hope that a certain posters pension was reduced on 8 July and then we could watch him squeal, and we could answer the posts with comments like, should have down the maths (muppet), and reference his moving goals posts stuff (your warning indeed). But that would take me down to that level of bitter and twisted mentaility.

Ignore the rubbish - your warning is well made. This is why in part at least, Manning really struggle to get officers to volunteer for overseas tours. As for the stuff about just RTB'd after another det and what trade are you - hit the delete key, what a load of crap by another bitter and warped mind. What has that got to do with your warning? Nothing.

I think your point is examine the total picture for you and your family and (regretably) don't take that LOA as guaranteed when doing the financial assessment - underpinned by you are now really worse off than had you remained in UK etc. I hope things pick up for you. Good luck.

Mos

[BEagle]

scuttled, thank you for making people aware of the negative effects of an exchange posting - it is scandalous that the financial impact of LOA reduction should be so severe.

Any honest employer would have agreed Ts&Cs in advance and should not have simply cut them without negotiation. But you are clearly not employed by an employer with any concern and who is merely bottom line driven.

Gone are the days of the 'Porsche polishers' of RAFG who enjoyed special fuel prices, very cheap alcohol and the value for money of the German economy. Valley? I found it no more expensive than England, but for wives the lack of well-known high street names in Holyhead or Llangefni would have been a bit of a bind. Yes, it took ages to drive anywhere at the weekend; I used to get up at 0400 to go and see a girl friend near Reading. It is much easier now that there are two bridges over the Menai and the roads have been vastly improved.

Out of curiousity, what was the daily LOA when you were first at your overseas location - and what is it now?

Have you made your desk officer aware of the financial impact? Do the bean counters have any real understanding of your situation?

Sorry that you have been on the receiving end of such schadenfreude for merely having exposed the financial reality of an overseas posting.

[Dengue_Dude]

Ah, the joys of a mature discussion on Pprune . . .

Twas but a dream . . .

I left the RAF in 1994 because it was not the organisation I joined and most of the changes were detrimental - seems infinitely worse now.

I think the OP made a fair point and the vitriol poured on him is more indicative of the responders' state of mind than anything he said.

The option to leave applies to all serving members

[FJ2ME]

Don't worry we're not all jealous c@cks who wouldn't get a loan/exchange tour if they applied for it.. You make a good point, if you read what LOA is supposed to compensate you for then it's hard to see how those circumstances have changed so radically just because it's a new financial year and the gov't's broke...and that's right d!@kneads it's compensation, so effectively the money is already spent by the individual, effectively meaning that a cut means the individual is actually losing money to do the job he's been told to do. Not many industry parallels there. For all you unimaginative pr!c£s that have been so rude to the original poster, that's kind of like the RAF telling you to fly your aircraft somewhere but you'll have to use your own card to pay for the fuel...

Wait til you come home and see what they're doing to our pensions...that of course assumes you can actually log on to a computer to check JPA and you haven't starved to death on the appalling food the RAF has contracted in...

My advice to you is find a position locally and use your 3rd year to soak up the flying pay loss. Don't come back-this place is s@rewed...

[Harley Quinn]

As for all the chaps on 10, 11 OOA dets, my understanding was that you all get a substantial Op allowance. Has that stopped?

[FlapJackMuncher]

Just to let you know, Cyprus hasn't been a 'sunshine tour' for at least the last 2 months.
It's been (relatively) bloody freezing.
HTH

[Burnswannabe]

Wow, not often I feel the need to post but I will add my insignificant voice to the notes of thanks for your advice, even if it is just to try and balance out the idiocy shown by some here.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Originally Posted by mosquito077

The nasty side of me would hope that a certain posters pension was reduced on 8 July and then we could watch him squeal, and we could answer the posts with comments like, should have down the maths (muppet), and reference his moving goals posts stuff (your warning indeed). But that would take me down to that level of bitter and twisted mentaility.

Oh the irony of the uninformed, my pension thanks to the 2 year pay freeze is down the best park of 2k a year with not far 7k gone from my handout so my whole future as opposed to whats left of a 3 year "sunshine" tour is being affected by the current financial crisis, the main difference here is that I have not started a thread whining about it

[Ivan Rogov]

What is shocking about this isn't the fact that LOA reduced again but some of the extremely narrow minded replies. Very selfish and insular views in my opinion, if they are still in the forces then they certainly don't come across as part of the team and I would hope these are the sort of people T2 targets, unfortunately it won’t be and we will lose good people .

Scuttled I sympathise with you, some people have the idea that all overseas tours are holidays, perhaps in the past, but in today’s harsh financial climate there can't be many cushtie ones left. If the RAF has a requirement to send someone on an overseas posting they should not be disadvantaged, I recently had the opportunity to apply for an overseas tour but decided not to for professional, personal and financial reasons, if there isn't enough carrot people won't go. Saying it was much worse in your day or to man up are long out dated and debunked ways of man management. Like any other job, without good terms of service many high calibre individuals will leave lowering the overall quality of the work force.

[BEagle]

If you based your pension expectations on 'estimated' future earnings, you were rather rash to have done so. My financial estimates were always based on the present, rather than on the expectation of future salary levels.

Your income has not been 'cut', it has been frozen. There will be a relatively small de facto impact due to external factors, but you have not had a significant cut to your present situation. Whereas those on overseas postings most assuredly have.

An example of the mean attitude of MoD was the way a colleague was treated when he PVR'd whilst in the US. By virtue of his status, he was normally entitled to a premium economy flight back to the UK. But his flight home was 2 hours after his exit date, so he was only permitted a cattle class seat.... If that's the way they treat 1-stars, what hope is there for anyone else?

[Could be the last?]

Scuttled,

Completely and utterly agree with your stance. And I for one would not advocate an accompanied overseas tour to anyone unless they were fully aware of all the implications, which includes:

Limited to zero spousal income (LOA not designed to cover this)
Fluctuating LOA/FFR (£52-32 reduction!)
Establishment costs (DA doesn't even come close to covering)
Inability to move all personal belongings (15 cubic m)
Travel costs
Questionable education standards (teachers subject to the above!!)
Etc etc.

There are NO sunshine tours left, and anyone who thinks there are is obviously working for someone else..........!

[glad rag]

LOA cuts, they always have, they always will.

Had my LOA removed with absolutely no notice in what, 1985'ish?, big loss even as a singlie [but the scalies were kept happy].

That weekend our "gang" had planned to do our monthly escape into "normality" via VW camper van to the black forest, not so much a piss up more a chance to meet normal people for a change, probably the best thing about a RAFG tour was the opportunity to escape Apocalypse now.

Plans went lossie of course.

First install the spills wiring into the latest cab to arrive from Whorton, Fri/Sat 14hrs+ shifts then Sunday Nuclear delivery system certification on the cabs that were returning to Sqdn service before their actual planned dates [OC TASF brown tongue as usual].

Valued personnel, don't make me laugh, always a case of the tail wagging the dog.

To the OP, sorry to see the krap still goes on.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Originally Posted by BEagle

If you based your pension expectations on 'estimated' future earnings, you were rather rash to have done so. My financial estimates were always based on the present, rather than on the expectation of future salary levels.

Your income has not been 'cut', it has been frozen. There will be a relatively small de facto impact due to external factors, but you have not had a significant cut to your present situation. Whereas those on overseas postings most assuredly have.

You seem to have missed the point as I am not sure where I gave the notion I had made any future plans based on "expectations".

I have no "expectations" at all with regard to my pension or my gratuity, all I have to go on are the predictions of the pension calculator and as such I will wait until Nov to see what I actually get.

You can call it what ever you like but based on the calculator offerings of a few years back and those of today I am down a tidy sum however I also "get" the fact that the global economy is in tatters and as such sometimes sh1t happens

[BEagle]

Hence my conditional clause with reference to pension expectations, or estimates if you prefer.

[Peter Carter]

I’m not sure things have changed that much. My exchange tour finances suffered when the £/US$ rate dropped to 1.1, with little FFR compensation adjustment. However, as a family, we had a fantastic 4 years. Great aircraft/people/country and we managed about 80,000 miles in our battered old Chevy Impala station wagon.
Came back poor but what the hell.

[Scuttled]

Round numbers.

Sqn Ldr / FS LOA married, no accompanying kids, per day.

Apr 2010 £37
Apr 2011 £20
Apr 2012 £17

So, £600 per month less than calculated before moving. We would absolutely not have come out if we had known this beforehand.

[BEagle]

Or, to put it another way, you're supposed to take a drop in pay of around £7000 per annum without complaint?

No amount of sunshine in foreign climes is worth that level of shafting.

When the RAF ever starts attempting to recruit aircrew again, will anyone really wish to join such an appallingly-managed organisation? Fun though the flying might be, when they let you, that is.

Even though Bliar and Incapability Brown bankrupted the nation's armed forces, those who smilingly let them for the 'third star and the K' should hang their heads in shame at the legacy of their woeful inactions.