RJ 100s at BA EOG

[snooky]

Well said overstress.

This whole debate comes down to two or three basics.

Firstly, pilot pay does not mean the difference between an airline making a reasonable profit or not.

Secondly, it is in all pilots' long term interest that pay and conditions should be improved and not eroded. I find it outrageous that someone purporting to be a pilot should advocate use of the lowest paying option.

Thirdly, management will always try to get things on the cheap- that's their job I suppose.

Incidentally, I think that Little Prince should show more respect for his younger professional collegues.

[Magplug]

Little Prince

OK Little Prince…..

I am all done now with being moderate, understanding or conciliatory. I am quite happy to work with a bunch of reasonable men towards a better working life however you are now on your own.

When you are all working for peanuts for whoever/wherever we will:

- Clean off the graffiti from the toilets walls in Jubilee House
- Take down the snide comments from all the notice boards
- Get rid of the chewing gum
- Build some bridges to our alienated rostering staff & dispatchers
- Get on with building a profitable business.
- Try to remember what life was like before school turned out.

When the bat is being inserted where the sun-don’t-shine - Don’t bother looking to your new colleagues for support – It won’t be there.

I just remembered why we had pilot selection!

[HomerJSimpson]

The Little Prince

Did you by any chance ever apply to BA?

[ASRAAM]

So if it is all down to pilot costs how come Easyjet and Ryanair have higher salaries than both BA (unless you have done more than about 17 Years) and BACE but still manage to charge passengers lower fairs?

[Land ASAP]

Little Prince of Darkness

Way too obvious Mr Prince. You have been summarily despatched to the compartment labelled "Management Plant".

Please Mr Prune can we have an 'ignore' function on this website?

[Hand Solo]

Well Little Prince I'd almost cry at your post if I wasn't laughing so loud. As you enjoy fairy tales so much let me recount a real tale. Around two years ago I sat in a hotel bar in Europe with a CFE crew, around the time BA had proposed handing over most of EOGs routes to CFE. Nice guys they were too, but oh so insistent that the routes would come to them, BA pilots were too expensive, CFE pilots would make it work, BALPA wouldn't stand in the way and they were on a tremendous thing. Two years later, what do we see? No wholesale route transfers to CFE due to BALPA intervention, CFE pilots shafted by the transfer of their aircraft to a lower paying operator, CFE captains facing the possible loss of command and all down to the whim of BA management. Not such a pretty picture now is it? In two years time it'll be the same story again, except this time it'll be BACE sitting on the bat instead of CFE. As for your comic assertion that BACEs profitability is so significant, well just remember that it wasn't so long ago BA were the worlds were most profitable airline, recording profits of over £500 million. Once the FS&S shake down is completed and the North Atlantic picks up we'll be back there again.


So what if you were instructing on fast jets when I was a boy. Where have you gone since then? If you're so good why aren't you in BA like your old fast jet QFI mates, many of whom work at a very happy regional base, where they get on well with the cabin crew and earn more money than you.

[Fox One]

Management must really be laughing at the way you are all behaving like children. I'm BACE, and I agree with the concept we WILL get the RJs. That doesn't mean we have to fall out about it.
If there is one thing you can be 100% sure of in this industry; any airline, any country, anywhere.and all the time....... it is that (wait for it ):

Things will always change !

Anyone who doesn't believe this, is doomed to failure - so lets stop trying to create a second class airline ( to all you smartass Mainliners), and stop trying to live in the past, ( to all you isolationist CFE and BACE guys!)

If we don't speak together, we'll be shafted alright, but it would be far worse to be shafted by our so-called supposed 'colleagues' in what used to be the world's favourite.

[Hand Solo]

The only people I see here trying to create a second class airline are you and your colleagues Fox One. If you think you WILL get the RJs then you are taking jobs from the CFE guys. No ifs, no buts. They aren't going to be allowed to fly them on any salary. As you're so happy to fly them at T&Cs so far below mainline, EOG, BAR and ex-CFE then you are eagerly reducing the number of well paid jobs in the UK airline industry by about 150. Please explain how that is not creating a second class airline. The management are laughing very hard, and you're just tickling their toes. Change is constant, but there's change for better and change for worse.

[Fox One]

:o As some of my colleagues have observed Handyboy, you really are a rather strange individual.. If you recall, there were a large number of CFE chaps who didn't want to be part of BA, and there were a huge amount of us who felt the same.
If you think that your thinly disguised attempts at retaining loss making routes -
(don't really care about that, OUR company has consistently been profitable, and those of us who have stayed with it have done so because we actually like it, and our regional jobs, even if they didn't attract main line major levels of T and C.
- and your attempt to reduce us to a small aeroplane operator - (yes, we know whats the real story, Mainline BALPA actually want scope at 70 seats - I wonder why!!!!!) you are deluding yourself.
Remember laddie, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN.

Why not go with the flow, instead of selfishly trying to retain it all for yourself - oh, and don't give us that BS about trying to get us all on mainline Ts and Cs - sorry, must go, the toothfairy is calling!

[Hand Solo]

Yes lots of people at CFE didn't want to be part of BA. A large number did, and with just a few exceptions most are financially better off with BA - better T&Cs, more opportunity. Your company has been consistently profitable, trading for several years now on our name and reputation. Well lucky you, I'm sure thats all down to your hard work on low pay, in fact your pay must make or break all of those routes, just like you think ours does. I'm sure you have stayed with it because you like your regional job, just like most of the guys at BAR have stayed with it, despite inferior T&Cs to mainline, who you are so keen to displace.

As for your assertions that all 70+ seats is BALPAs target for scope, please don't flatter yourself. I couldn't give a rats ass about 70, 80, or 90 seat flying. The further away from me the better, and I'm sure almost all my BA colleagues agree. But when you start taking BA aircraft, flown by BA pilots out of the BA inventory and then hand them over to another company, well thats a different matter entirely. If 'going with the flow' means handing over our positions to you just because you're cheap then I choose to swim the other way.

Now on to your assertion as to me being a strange individual. Would you like to back that up with some evidence, or shall we just put that down to childish name calling laddie?

[Peter Skellan]

Oh how lovely it must be to work for BA. Pilot group against pilot group against cabin crew against everyone else.

Face it guys. Gatwick is knackered. Easy are going to clean up on the European routes, BA will retrench and from then its a downward spiral. No airline ever survived by becoming smaller..

BA should have taken over CFE and handed over all routes to them OR kept Go and done the same.

BA will become a long haul airline with medium haul feeders in-house. All shorthaul is essentially screwed. All it would take is an agreement with Easy etc. to offer transfer of baggage and codeshare and Bingo.

You don't fly to CAP371, your aircraft do 8hrs a day no 13, you pay your cabin crew a fortune and your groundstaff are so protected by seniority and unions that they do very little for a small fortune with bad grace.

The flightdeck crew are great operators to a man.

Shame really. Glad I never accepted the offer.

PS

[Charizard]

I am quite sure, Mr. Handjob, that the attitude you portray will impress all my colleagues in BACE, from Brymon, BRAL and Manx, as to just how fortunate we are to be joining an organisation whose employees so clearly and vocally want nothing but the best for us. Your sheer arrogance in referring to our operations under your colours - bear in mind these were charged for by BA, simply because YOU couldn't get a return on them. Doubtless this was a BA management plot to disadvantage you poor overworked and underpaid BA pilots. Bear in mind that even though we paid BA through the nose for the franchise, we STILL made a profit on them. But, lest we forget, you and your friends have our best interests at heart. We can tell from your contemptuous references to us that you are clearly delighted to have us as part of BA. I wonder, could it be because you know we could (and lets face it, probably will, in time) be operating more and more of your aeroplanes, and making even more profit. You have to remember that actually, some of us would be delighted to do your jobs at 2/3rds the salary - hey, we'd probably do it better too! You note I say "some". This is because the only reason most of us haven't already joined you is that we like life in the regions, and we DID like life as part of a Company where everyone knew each other, and could resolve problems without the grinding corporate machine represented by BALPA and BA .
Well, that's history now, but if I were in your shoes WHATEVER you fly, I'd be VERY worried. As my mate said, change is the only sure thing, and corporate views change. Remember you came from BEA and BOAC, once upon a time, big was thought to be beautiful. I wonder if that's still the case.

BALPA.??? (Pause for guffaws) Oh yes, that's where a BA long haul expat Captain is trying to displace the General Secretary, because apparently you don't like him either. What's the matter, did he not provide a suitable exec limo to take you to your aircraft? Or did he dare to suggest that the cheeseboard was an anachronism? Seems you don't like anyone who doesn't agree with you and doesn't pass you another cheeseboard. You carry on matey boy, you are doing the best single Captain Lemming job I've ever seen to REALLY encourage us to turn the clock back a few years. What goes around etc etc. So when is my Airbus course then, I should think they'll be next on their way to us, closely followed by the shuttle!

Do keep it up, I laughed till my eyes were dry. You're not a lemming at all are you, more of a DODO!!

[JW411]

A few days ago I tried to suggest to all of you "BA chaps" that you should bury the hatchet, but, as always, greed and avarice is coming to the top of the pile. War has now broken out within BA yet again, it would appear.

I seriously think that we are (within the next few years) going to witness the final collapse of the Imperial Airways/British Airways/BOAC/BEA/BA Country Club PLC. As an ex-GK employee (who was badly shafted by the likes of Lord King and Sir Adam Thompson and had my flying career totally f***ed for 13 months), I should really have little sympathy, but time is a great healer and strangely enough, I just cannot believe how much hatred you guys in BA still have for each other- you have learned nothing. I was "seconded" to BEA for a year on the Viscount many years ago and their (BEA) hatred for BOAC was amazing.

Being out of work is not fun. Certainly, I would suggest that you chaps in BA seriously consider your future. The UK government is not going to bail you out. If you stil need some confidence, just look at what happened to Equitable Life!

To Mr Solo; I have to apologise in advance (with reference to his RAF fast jet pilots); As I have already indicated, I was offered a position on one of the very early Hamble courses. (I recently found the BOAC welcoming blurb in the attic and was amused to read that "a Senior BOAC 707 Captain" could "possibly" earn £5000 per year).

Dear Mr Hand Solo, Not all of us in the Royal Air Force were fast jet pilots and to a lot of us, the alternative was by choice. In my case, I wanted to see the world and spent my entire RAF career on 4-engined transport aircraft complete with a good F/E.

I never did a ground tour and I managed 9000 hours on 4-engined aeroplanes. To my astonishment, I became a training captain on 4-engined aeroplanes at the age of 25. It must have worked out OK for I have never had a complaint.

I did my ATPL at Kidlington some 3 years before leaving the RAF. In those days a Seneca was £72 per hour but I had to start all over again despite my RAF experience.

Despite the fact that my wardrobe has more uniforms therein than the Imperial War Museum, I have had a good civilian career. Put simply, I got a DC-10 command within a year of leaving the Air Force and I have not had to move seats since. I have probably made a lot more money than I would have had I joined BA and I have had a hell of a lot more fun than the folk that I see squabbling on Pprune!

Be nice to one another or else your huge inflated bubble is going to burst!

[Baron Harkonnen]

Hey Jay Dubbya, well said. Why is it that all the common sense originates elsewhere than the mainline BA sources. It used to be instructive to have a read of their private forum, using the old Skippy6 password - certainly their guys were not shy about sharing access! And wow, if you had only read all the posts about needing a BA man at the top of BALPA!!!

However, being both ex mil and BACE, sense must prevail. As JW said, the final collapse could be imminent. Who do you think is most vulnerable - the lower or the higher cost elements of the operation? Don't need a Flight Engineer to work that one out! We in BACE are very well aware that pilot salaries are not the be all and end all, either in terms of proportion of operating cost, or in relevance to a good quality of life; - but on the other hand, in security of future and tenure, the answer might look a little diffferent???????. Remember how a certain Mr A. Scargill thought he was invincible because of the might of his union, and the skirmishes he had won previously against previous opposition.
We all have a pretty good deal by anyone's comparison. As Sheryl Crow sings,
"It ain't about getting what you want, it's about wanting what you got....."

So, let's not fall out. Negotiating and compromise is the way forward, not bully boy Hand 'Mick McGahey' Solo dictating what we will and will not get, whilst expecting his own cosy little world to continue unaffected. I've flown with some of our BA kaydets and kaydettes, and mostly they're just as good as the usual new entry, and they're mostly just glad to have a job, and be doing some interesting flying. One might think too that a grounding in the world of the ATP, Dash 8 and Jetstream will probably do them far more good in terms of a career foundation than jumping straight into a Scroggs wundajett!

Hoping for a more friendly way forward................(but not holding my breath).

[The Overloaded Man]

JW and Barron,

Nice to hear a little objectivity - I was getting pretty sick of all the precious my job's more important than your job type of stuff that's been prevalent on this thread. One thing I can't abide is someone trying to tell me that a particular job is not for me but for only for the likes of whoever. I've just had to put up with all of that crap at another British Major ...

[overstress]

WoW! Some contributers here positively drip venom and envy (which are both the same colour). I hope I never have to share a flight deck with them, knowingly or not.

There seems to be huge ill-feeling from certain regional individuals whilst some of them seem to be getting things hugely out of proportion whilst offering to do my job for 2/3 pay whilst doing it better!

Well I don't see how we're ever going to improve t&c for UK airline pilots whilst individuals like Charizad (who got the wrong end of the stick about Hand Solo's location) abound.

Tell me your management position, Chazza? You can't be a line pilot with your giveaway offers, surely?

[Maximuss]

I think it accurate that there is a widespread feeling, (true or otherwise) that BA are not remotely interested in assisting us in BACE, purely in lining their own pockets. Whatever the rights or wrongs of their own position, remuneration wise, they cannot expect us to cheer as our takeover results in our own degradation of Ts and Cs, not to mention aircraft types.

Its just a pity there is not more communication from BA BALPA, but from where we are, they appear more interested in changing the Gen Secretary, in order to achieve enough disruption to force a pay rise. Again, right or wrong in fact, I think it is pretty selfish prioritisation.

Name calling is always wrong, but some people really do seem to deliberately provoke it. Its a pity there isn't a management filter on here, not to mention an agent provocateur filter.

Anyone think JF will actually win?

[overstress]

Maximuss:

Who do you mean in BA - we the line pilots or the management?

I can assure you that as a line pilot I would wish to see you operating on best terms and conditions you can get from the company, nothing less.

(I have worked for other companies before on worse conditions and would not wish to go back).

I only wish that some of your colleagues would wish the same to us.

[Deadleg]

I respectfully suggest Mr/Capt Moderator that we treat this thread like the last hour or so of day 5 of a rain/bad light interupted cricket test match.No one has even the remotest chance of winning so we should all call it a draw and adjorne to the bar and get pissed and s*%tcan the management in the best possible style!

[Secret Squirrel]

HOMER:

Please don't talk to me about selection processes as if they were a hardship. You, just like everybody else, read up on what was required and you had every angle covered before you went in. You probably even bought yourself a leggo kit or Knex or whatever it is they use. You played the white man all along and you duped them into thinking that you were just the person you were looking for. You fawned and you won a scholarship for which you had to pay not a penny. THAT is possibly the only thing that comes close to a hardship. Had you not been so fortunate yourself on the one or two days it takes to complete the whole process I ask myself how many of you cadets would actually have had the mettle to find your own way of becoming pilots.

I won't bore all and sundry with the hardships that vocational pilots have had to go through or the potentially life threatening hardships that our boys in blue have had to go through as they are well documented but don't make me laugh, Homer.

You may well be a good pilot and a good operator but you know absolutely nothing about airlines or hardships; all you understand is seniority lists.

You don't understand, do you, the hypocrisy of our situation. We could have done all those routes far cheaper and far more efficiently than BA. Fine, we would be on a lower wage but we had a cool airline (with a crap rosterring system!) and all it's problems were being ironed out slowly. Eventually we would have had bigger aircraft just like GB. We didn't have to put up with stroppy dispatchers or get called into the office because we berated them for not doing their job properly. We didn't have ramp managers tell the tug drivers that they couldn't load a couple of pax' bags in the hold (so that we could make a slot!!!). We couldn't be seen to show up BA as we had been doing for years! We couldn't beat them so we had to join them. Fine, now they are doing to us precisely what they didn't want us to do to them: fly our routes with their aircraft and shove us aside quoting seniority (which, if anything, we should have had AT LEAST from Dec 2000 anyway).

If my attitude seems strange to you then it's because you are what I said you were; a Silver Spoon Pilot. I worked hard for four years to get my command (and longer if you count training and instructing) and I'm dammned if I'm going to lose it to a bunch of hypocrites without a fight and a rant.

I have been willing to accept my lot, Homer, don't get me wrong. If my fleet had not been touched, or if you people hadn't been trying to strip me of my hard-earned stripes to protect your own interests I'd be Mr Friendly. As it is, it's you or me and my name ain't Jesus.

Hand Solo:

150 jobs are not being lost, don't be so melodramatic. Acording to Lloydy baby there are more than enough places at LHR and LGW to fit us all in over the next three years; which is how long it will take them to crew 16 RJ's fully.

Also, your assertion that it is management and BA that are trying to stiff us is hogwash propaganda nonsense. In my case, if anything, and for what I'm 'fighting/bleeting/whingeing' -whatever - I've got management on my side because if they can, they'd rather I retain my command as they'll have to pay me as such anyway, so they may as well get their money's worth.

To all those who are advocating moderation, I appreciate where you're coming from. To a certain extent you are right. However, you have to appreciate that BA is too big and therefore it's individuals too selfish. It's making me so, but only because in order to survive, I fight fire with fire.

When the only words that ever come out of a BA pilot is seniority, seniority, seniority you become a little weary and there will never be understanding; they don't care about anything else.