EasyJet Hiring Experienced Pilots anytime soon?
Join Date: May 2007
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'Speedbird'462, do you any idea what you are talking about? 
I am just expressing my opinion from reading the various Ezy threads, out of interest may I add and not as an Ezy pilot myself. I assume that the verb missing in your sentence is 'have' and thank you for taking the time to ask, very kind.
This is a public thread and, correct me if I'm wrong, everyone is entitled to have and express their opinion? by the tone of your post, I gather you have already made the pressumption of what I know or do not know. You obviously have some special skills.
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Sure, everybody is entitled to his/her opinion.
Obviously NSF and I have totally different standpoints, however, we both do substantiate our points of view!
We just arrive at different conclusions...
Posts like yours are nothing but fluff/pagefiller and contribute the square root of
Obviously NSF and I have totally different standpoints, however, we both do substantiate our points of view!
We just arrive at different conclusions...
Posts like yours are nothing but fluff/pagefiller and contribute the square root of
Join Date: May 2007
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I wonder whether I would have had such an impetuous response if I had said I agreed with you, of course that would have been a much more valuable contribution to the content of this thread. I apologise in advance for the waste of space my posts have taken from other much more substantial ones. I personally don't feel the need to elaborate the reasons why I agree with NSF but since you showed interest, I will. In essence I appreciate his positive attitude and willingness to make things right/better and not spending days in misery and wishing you were somewhere else where the grass is 'obviously' always greener.
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RHINO
I think the statement about airlines looking at reducing crew costs refers to all airlines please don't be that naive. My own personal opinion is that EZY got it's fingers burned on crew numbers this summer and won't risk doing it again so numbers will increase which equates more jobs / Commands etc. I also think going after the fixed roster would be the biggest mistake Ezy would ever make and would only be drive by a combination of beancounters or misguided Managers driven by bonus culture as NSF so well puts.
D the H and superced - least NSF comes over well unlike you two no-hopers.
You need to move on the grass is green (although funnily enough i imagine 90% of my Airlines crew would jump to Easy for a fixed roster)
I think the statement about airlines looking at reducing crew costs refers to all airlines please don't be that naive. My own personal opinion is that EZY got it's fingers burned on crew numbers this summer and won't risk doing it again so numbers will increase which equates more jobs / Commands etc. I also think going after the fixed roster would be the biggest mistake Ezy would ever make and would only be drive by a combination of beancounters or misguided Managers driven by bonus culture as NSF so well puts.
D the H and superced - least NSF comes over well unlike you two no-hopers.
You need to move on the grass is green (although funnily enough i imagine 90% of my Airlines crew would jump to Easy for a fixed roster)
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I also think going after the fixed roster would be the biggest mistake Ezy would ever make and would only be drive by a combination of beancounters or misguided Managers driven by bonus culture as NSF so well puts.
I am sure Balpa will oppose any such moves but the board knows this and will come after the fixed pattern in stealth mode. Ultimately I do think there will be enough poeple willing to give up a fixed pattern to move to their base of choice/earn more cash, or even just get a job with us as a new starter, to put the future of the fixed pattern in serious doubt. I would hope that the roster pattern is one thing those of us in balpa will actually stand together on - we shall see
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Well i for one find it really disappointing that the fixed roster is something that is potentially on its way out, certainly for new starters and under threat for existing pilots. I don't work for Easy but always looked at them as a company that would be worth getting to for the better T&C's, fixed roster, modern fleet and seemingly a happy work force!!!!!
Having only ever experienced a flexi roster at another low cost airline I can certainly see the huge benifit a fixed roster would offer, not just in terms of reduced fatigue (ie: never working 6 days in a row starting on earlies for 3 days, swapping to lates on day 4, then finishing on a late on day 6 and having 2 days off followed by an early), the ability to plan your life more than 4 weeks in advance which is a huge bonus in this industry especially with a family.....
I wonder if some people won't realise what they have until they've worked a full summer on a flexi roster and it is gone and all for the sake of a few extra £££...
Stand up and fight to keep it.....
Having only ever experienced a flexi roster at another low cost airline I can certainly see the huge benifit a fixed roster would offer, not just in terms of reduced fatigue (ie: never working 6 days in a row starting on earlies for 3 days, swapping to lates on day 4, then finishing on a late on day 6 and having 2 days off followed by an early), the ability to plan your life more than 4 weeks in advance which is a huge bonus in this industry especially with a family.....
I wonder if some people won't realise what they have until they've worked a full summer on a flexi roster and it is gone and all for the sake of a few extra £££...
Stand up and fight to keep it.....
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Chatted to someone coming to the end of his cash for random roster pattern - he won't be doing it again, not worth doing, too knackered - looked it too. The fixed pattern is knackering enough for flips sake, a couple of years of random...unsustainable long term me thinks
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Chatted to someone coming to the end of his cash for random roster pattern - he won't be doing it again, not worth doing, too knackered - looked it too. The fixed pattern is knackering enough for flips sake, a couple of years of random...unsustainable long term me thinks
Well hopefully they'll be many more like him thinking and feeling the same!!!
Mind you don't know why i am getting my hopes up it doesn't look like Easy will be doing any recruitment for experienced FO's anyway...
Well hopefully they'll be many more like him thinking and feeling the same!!!
Mind you don't know why i am getting my hopes up it doesn't look like Easy will be doing any recruitment for experienced FO's anyway...
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Chatted to someone coming to the end of his cash for random roster pattern - he won't be doing it again, not worth doing, too knackered - looked it too. The fixed pattern is knackering enough for flips sake, a couple of years of random...unsustainable long term me thinks
Well hopefully they'll be many more like him thinking and feeling the same!!!
After this summer, the thin end of the wedge is inserted and another one of Pandora's boxes has opened. Wouldn't it have been better to let things come to a grinding halt? Perhaps only then, any company (especially "career" airlines!
) will be 'motivated' enough to make sure that it won't happen again in the long run? Instead, the jello-spined workforce fell for the Doomsday scenario that the world was going to end, economically speaking that is. Subsequently, many sold their soul to the Devil for a few extra quid and pushed the fatigue envelop even further...in the wrong direction! 
Two sayings spring to mind;
1) "Don't let a good crisis go to waste." (management)
2) "There's a sucker born every minute" (employees)
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I cannot agree with that perspective Doug. The Doomsday scenario you describe was indeed there. Through a fateful combination of greed, wishful thinking and total incompetence we managed to run seriously short of pilots this summer. I believe in the next few weeks heads will roll for that, and rightly so. Nonetheless, given that we had this mess we all needed to do anything we safely could to rescue the situation. I do not apologise to anyone for selling back leave and working into discretion on several occasions recently, partly to help the company and partly to help our customers. And, yes, I gained financially from it, which I have no problems with either. Not a single colleague was disadvantaged by it and it had to be done to sort out the mess. Clearly the undergirding principle had to be safety first, and it always was. It is worth reflecting on the significant damage to our reputation that has occurred this summer - and that is with the enormous efforts of the pilots and cabin crew who put all hands on decks. Had we followed your advice to somehow punish the company, we would have done incalculable damage to easyJet and, by association, ourselves. I do not like any more than you do the PR disaster of this summer. What I cannot go along with is the almost deliberate desire to create even greater mayhem just because we could. I am in the business of making easyJet successful, because in the end if easyJet goes down the we all go down with it. That is just plain common sense to me.
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Not a single colleague was disadvantaged by it and it had to be done to sort out the mess.
You've said that you only have a few more year till retirement, but what about the 20-30 year old colleagues who still have to work a few more decades? Did you ever consider the long term consequences of your short term gains/actions for their sake? Perhaps you're happy in LGW, but perhaps there are hundreds of colleagues who one day hope for a (for example) ATH base. Or what about the starter of this thread, who paid his dues and perhaps one day hopes to join on a fixed roster? Would you still be able to look into a mirror and say "not a single colleague was disadvantaged by it" if one day they offer a take-it-or-leave-it 'flexible roster only' contract for a popular new base or existing bases for new-joiners?
Had we followed your advice to somehow punish the company, we would have done incalculable damage to easyJet and, by association, ourselves.
All people like you did this summer is to help the company paper over the ugly side (short term) and help them insert the thin end of the wedge (long term) with regards to the fixed roster pattern.
Mr Angry from Purley,
Naive...I laughed
Go and have a read about what the board have been saying regarding 'fatigue' and it's management. You will then see clearly why the fixed roster is under attack.
Maybe you won't....
Naive...I laughed
Go and have a read about what the board have been saying regarding 'fatigue' and it's management. You will then see clearly why the fixed roster is under attack.
Maybe you won't....
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It all sounds very much like several years ago when they introduced the Carmen rostering software and then sat back for months not bothering to fix it, having set the software up incorrectly (they blamed the software, but the fault was how it was configured). Fatigue was a massive problem back then, so much so that the CAA were following about 100 roster patterns in a quiet study (including mine, as it turned out - I found that out from the Flt Safety office when my doctor grounded me for three weeks for fatigue).
The way I see it, with the legacy airlines specifically targeting EZY and RYR senior FOs and Capts, the fatigue levels and the unstable rosters, there is no way EZY will be able to recruit at a pace to match the departures. Let's not forget that it takes upto six months to recruit experienced crews from another company and get them on line, but only three months for them to leave.
They are already well behind on pilot numbers, and with that creating the rostering and fatigue problems, conditions will continue to deteriorate and force exponentially more pilots to leave as time progresses. I think they're going to have to come up with some fairly impressive incentives to stop the resignations. RYR have the same problem, though to a much lesser extent, with a small shortage of promotion eligible FOs, but with quite a few already leaving to EK and more talking about it. RYR are keeping their 100% fixed patterns (no reserve/random months), which is at least one reason for many fence-sitters to stay, but if they're facing shortages, then EZY looks like it's facing a crisis.
I really hope they can sort it out, because it has the potential to cripple or even sink the company, which would obviously be bad not only for the employees and punters, but for terms and conditions elsewhere as a flood of experienced crew hit the jobs market again. Well constructed rosters will benefit the company by achieving 900 hours per year from each pilot while ensuring a fixed pattern to minimise fatigue and illness, thus reducing the number of standby crew needed, and with the spin off of increased quality of life and morale for the pilots. It's a zero-cost, high benefit issue. If RYR can recognise that, then what the hell is wrong with the EZY managers?
The way I see it, with the legacy airlines specifically targeting EZY and RYR senior FOs and Capts, the fatigue levels and the unstable rosters, there is no way EZY will be able to recruit at a pace to match the departures. Let's not forget that it takes upto six months to recruit experienced crews from another company and get them on line, but only three months for them to leave.
They are already well behind on pilot numbers, and with that creating the rostering and fatigue problems, conditions will continue to deteriorate and force exponentially more pilots to leave as time progresses. I think they're going to have to come up with some fairly impressive incentives to stop the resignations. RYR have the same problem, though to a much lesser extent, with a small shortage of promotion eligible FOs, but with quite a few already leaving to EK and more talking about it. RYR are keeping their 100% fixed patterns (no reserve/random months), which is at least one reason for many fence-sitters to stay, but if they're facing shortages, then EZY looks like it's facing a crisis.
I really hope they can sort it out, because it has the potential to cripple or even sink the company, which would obviously be bad not only for the employees and punters, but for terms and conditions elsewhere as a flood of experienced crew hit the jobs market again. Well constructed rosters will benefit the company by achieving 900 hours per year from each pilot while ensuring a fixed pattern to minimise fatigue and illness, thus reducing the number of standby crew needed, and with the spin off of increased quality of life and morale for the pilots. It's a zero-cost, high benefit issue. If RYR can recognise that, then what the hell is wrong with the EZY managers?
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Divide and conquer
I don't work for Easyjet but it makes for interesting reading and similiar scenes are enacted in countless Airlines around the World.
NSF, you are absolutely correct, 'Love them or hate them, our managers are the people with whom we have to deal'. So deal with them. So far you've just dished up excuses why you shouldn't.
As for Doug being the enemy - Brother you're facing the wrong way.
NSF, you are absolutely correct, 'Love them or hate them, our managers are the people with whom we have to deal'. So deal with them. So far you've just dished up excuses why you shouldn't.
As for Doug being the enemy - Brother you're facing the wrong way.
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EZY are starting to offer permanent positions to their experience flexicrew pilots as of today, but trying to send the to Paris, Berlin... Most of these pilots are UK related and will not be accepting these positions. With Emirates coming to Gatwick on the 20th of September and the likes of Virgin and BA recruiting in the next 6 months. Easyjet really need to stop laughing on our faces
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