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Industrial Action at Flybe?

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Industrial Action at Flybe?

Old 4th Jun 2011, 20:30
  #801 (permalink)  
 
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ACAS not worked, nothing else for it. It will be yes to IA from me.
And me.....................
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Old 4th Jun 2011, 20:34
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Count me in to tick the yes box............

No more faffing please, due process is complete.
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Old 4th Jun 2011, 23:16
  #803 (permalink)  
 
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Feel let down and depressed by management's attitude so it'll be a YES here to
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 00:13
  #804 (permalink)  
 
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As someone who is considering joining FlyBe in the not too distant future, what is wrong with the t&c's? I have to say I do not know the detail of your shift patterns or previous pay deals.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 07:21
  #805 (permalink)  
 
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All other reasonable avenues have now been explored, so BALPA lets stop messing about and get the strike ballot out - one more in the YES box from me!
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 09:20
  #806 (permalink)  
 
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Yes

Yes to strike from me too.

In response to the poster who asked what's wrong with Flybe T&C's it's hard to know where to start:

Roster pattern 5x4 sector days on, finish 22.30 Friday night, Sat+Sun off but start work 06.00 Monday, thus unlike an office worker you don't get Friday night because you're working and you don't get Sunday night because you ought to go to bed at 20.00-21.00 to get up at 04.00am on Monday morning for your early shift. Now most of us don't go to bed at 20.00, we go to bed at 22.00 or 23.00 to try and have a half decent weekend and just fly the aeroplanes around on Monday morning with 4-5 hours sleep. I'm not sure that ANY other airline in civilised world has such a brutally short weekend. Wanna go away to visit friends/relatives/take the missus to Paris for a weekend? - forget it the weekend is too short... The resulting fatigue from this relentless rostering practice in the busiest bases causes people to feel utterly burnt out and genuinely fatigued.

Basic pay - For both Captains and F/O's is way below the market rate for other comparable airlines such as Air Berlin/BMIbaby etc - Expect to be earning £35k after becoming SFO and working for 5 years as an airline pilot (including Flight pay) - that's £10k a year less than a train driver starts on... Expect to be paid as a Captain what a good company pays its F/O's - £55k.

Flight duty pay is paid at £1.91 an hour less tax, no sector pay - hasn't changed in years. So if you're a Captain and taxed at 40% and you work an extra three hours doing two extra sectors you'll earn £1.91x3hrs=£5.73-40% tax - about £3 for three hours extra work and two extra sectors - it's way less than most paper rounds pay schoolboys per hour and beyond a joke.

The crew food is utterly appalling and is sourced from suppliers who seem to specialise in almost out of date fat laden muffins, sandwiches with the worst quality ingredients - cold cheap sausage with ketchup and mayonnaise anyone? - or maybe you'd like the egg florentine - 2 day old egg mayonnaise with cheap cheddar stirred into it to add a strange piquancy to the flavour.

As a first job it's obviously better than nothing and the training is genuinely very good and you will fly with some really nice people. The flying is fun by airline standards - a good mix of fairly short routes to keep the interest level high and the skill levels up. Flybe is a company that could be a really good place to be if the management wished to make it so - it's just a shame they don't.

DP
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 09:44
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Desk-pilot

Doesn't sound like anything has changed whatsoever since I left after a short stint a few years. Good people to fly with, decent training and almost everything else was rubbish. I voted with my feet. Good luck guys.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 09:55
  #808 (permalink)  
 
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Surely the flip-side is that ever other weekend you'll get a long one off when you go from earlies to lates? Or is it more complex than that?
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 09:56
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Well, here we go then.

Settling the dispute for the 3 year period in question at the relatively modest levels of improvement needed to pacify a majority of crews would cost what? Another couple of million? An amount entirely within the company's control and one which can be budgeted for accordingly.

Industrial action for an unspecified period of time involving a completely unpredictable level of disruption and damage to the Flybe brand. What cost here? I would wager an amount similar to the volcanic disruption of last year and the longer it goes on, the more militant the workers become and the higher the eventual cost of settlement. Completely out of the company's control.

I used to think we had some very smart people at the top, and they were let down by the managers that run the day to day operation, but now I'm really not so sure.

Regardless what happens here, I'll be at the AGM on 8 September and I intend to see that the big institutional investors get to hear some very direct and frank feedback to the board on how this business actually runs and the risks to future expansion that the directors are taking with their tight-fisted and short-sighted approach to the current operation.

On the bright side, just think what price the shares will be when the company eventually launches our sharesave scheme. Sub £1 anyone?
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 10:30
  #810 (permalink)  
 
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Who is your BALPA PN? is it still KB? if so there is no chance of a strike she couldn't organise a p**s up in brewery.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 12:04
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CC,

I was under the impression that you'd do a week of earlies then the next week would be lates and so on. So they mix shifts within your working week? Nice!!

Sadly it's an employers market at the moment; I do hope that changes soon for everybody's sake.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 12:23
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CC has it bang on with his excellent posts.

In terms of the people you get to go work with, I'd say this company is hard to beat. But that's partly due now to the fact that everytime I jump into my seat on the flightdeck me and the other guy or gal talk about nothing but the cretins at the top and now middle of this company and how they have systematically and knowingly destroyed the spirit and resolve of it's most valuable assets. That's above FL 150 of course - I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm none standard and call me to Exeter for a school boy bollocking.

I have not met one colleague on the flight deck in my base who isn't going to vote for strike action and actually do it. I really hope it's the same everywhere else.

The management are complete idiots and they have failed in their duty to this company and it's staff. And by god, they are going to get what's coming to them now - off their pilots and then the shareholders. Bye bye Jim. You had your chance, and you've buggered it big time mate.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 12:46
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and everyone, please watch your backs. At least one v.senior management pilot has been heard wanting to sack everyone who voted No in the lead in to this, and I bet there's more. Obviously you can't do that, but I wouldn't want to get him in the sim if I were sticking my neck out on the non-anonymous boards. Added to the summary execution/check-your-six culture we're already got, and you've all the ingredients for a real pleasant summer coming up...
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 13:14
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Come on you can do better than that be more specific chap....
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 13:21
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I wouldn't put it past this company to be stupid enough to sack around 75% of it's pilot workforce.......
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 13:33
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Bye bye Jim. You had your chance, and you've buggered it big time mate.
Not a bad run for a former BCAL load controller. Time for him to go and take strong love with him!


Surely the flip-side is that ever other weekend you'll get a long one off when you go from earlies to lates? Or is it more complex than that?
HA HA HA!!! oh that really is a good one! oooohhh.............but really. You will only ever EVER get 8 days off a month. Unless you have leave. Which must piss this chap right off as we are over paid and under worked as it is according to him.

My last roster was bang on limits for FTL and duty. Genuine feeling of fatigue on last few days (I am young so lasted longer than some) 6 on 2 off 6 on 3 off etc etc min rest the lot! Phoned in 'fatigued' and got sectioned to a mental health facility! well thats how i felt it was handled! read out a dictionary def of fatigued and told there was no way i could be as i didnt fit into the definition!!!!! Oh and it was impossible to be fatigued as the roster was 'legal'!!!! Asked to be sent asap to company doc in brum. They have no choice but to comply, but in a scathing sort of way they arranged it. Oh and said i should hire car!! Fatigued and hire car!!!!!!!!TITS!

FATIGUE is an illegal word in Flybe. It would appear to be gross misconduct to utter it on compant time.

So much for duty of care. Over the last winter I had the misfortune to be stuck abroad on duty due tech (4 times) and Wx (2 times). Some from GLA were far worse off than moi! On all but one of those times, where we happened to be at a flybe base, crewing washed their hands of us! It took the missus back home to find and book a hotel for us. So much for duty of care! they could not have given less of a crap.

Can't wait to be on the picket line! At least it will be summer! But i'd be happy to be on it in the winter! The managment have dug their heads in the sand and really don't think there is an issue, or any bad feeling. Some of the PBMs think the same! nutters! it is staring them right in the face! thats the flying club airline mentality for you. Totally clueless and out of touch.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 13:42
  #817 (permalink)  
 
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Jersey145 Your spot on. To quote a certain flight safety manager "Fatigue is NOT a flight safety issue" - Go figure. The more he was questioned the more irrate he became. Definitely a naughty word down in EXT.
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 15:05
  #818 (permalink)  
 
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Last time I wanted to go fatigued, after a 15 hour day then minimum rest, crewing refused to accept it, said I had to phone duty management pilot, this at 2300!!!!!

Current monthly hours bouncing off the max!!
All for 20+ grand a year less than a similar Easyjet pilot and they get more than 2 days off in a row!!
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 16:39
  #819 (permalink)  
 
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To quote a certain flight safety manager "Fatigue is NOT a flight safety issue" - Go figure. The more he was questioned the more irrate he became.
perhaps he's fatigued
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Old 5th Jun 2011, 20:22
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As they say "actions speak louder than words" which is why I don't read any of the dribble written by our chief pilot any more.
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