Flybe-What is Balpa for...??
 

Are you happy with your pay package?
In times of an industry wide shortage of experienced pilots, shouldn't we be actively trying to reduce the pay disparity between ourselves and other airlines?
It's no great surprise that both FO's and skippers are being enticed away by offers of an effective 25% pay increase plus the benefits of a better work life balance.

Absolutely old boy!

I too have seen no sign of Balpa fighting in our corner for pay parity (or anything else for that matter, the last scheduling agreement was a joke). I'm tired of earning so much less than people in similar positions. However, I'm happy at Flybe and resent feeling pressured to leave purely because of the pants money! What really rubs salt in the wound is receiving the December/January update and seeing that we're in the strongest financial position that we have been in for years.

Rumours of a 4.7% rise are an insult. We have only received one rise in the last several years of 4%, which results in an effective pay cut because of inflation.

The management are the first to admit that Flybe's continued financial success is as a result of everyone's extremely hard work and dedication. It's time for them to put their money where their mouth is (and for Balpa to stand up for the people that have made the airline what it is today!).

Stop wasting money on wooden floors in the training centre and unnecessary taxis and hotel rooms.

I thank you!

Good to see you agree IC.
Any guesses as to how many others feel the same way about the whole Balpa thing?
I can't say I'm totally happy about the usefulness of my 1% contribution. If it wasn't for the legal representation........

Well said...... i completely agree.

Inferior salary, inferior jets, rosta disruption........

Can there ever be a better position to be in to demand a decent pay rise - company is financially performing and pilots are leaving by the departure lounge load.

And yet 4.7% takes us to year2000..... so we'll only be half a decade behind now.

Great.

Think i might be better cancelling my BALPA membership and getting sky instead.

BPM

BALPA ar a disgrace.

Legal Protection Insurance is available independently at a fraction of the cost of BALPA.

In addition, your right to representation is decided professionally, not upon a whim of some BALPA bod.

Free legal advice as well. I used it and it helped me win a fight for £ thousands.

In addition, the Legal Protection guys seem keen to show they're better than BALPA. One of the guys at work was victimised by management and they pulled out all the stops.


BALPA don't care about anyone but the BA workforce. The BA subscriptions would keep BALPA in luxury without any other subscribers. BA management are about the level BALPA can cope with. Give them a bully-boy management and BALPA are hopeless.

Nothing will ever change. You work within a training airline so my best advise is move on if you don't like it. How much do you guys want? It is a fact that the bigger the Aircraft the bigger the wage. I think you will find that Mr French and his top brass are in Seattle as we speak spending your wishful pay rise!!

acbus,

Could you please supply details of the Legal Protection Insurance that you talk about as I would like to vote with my feet and leave BALPA.

Thank You

PJ

Hudson

What exactly is the airline training in....?

The problem is everyone IS leaving. That leaves me faced with another year of roster disruption and max hours. All smithy is saying is if we payed better in the first place the company wouldn't be unable to crew the summer schedule or end up paying contractors twice as much as they pay us!

Why shouldn't we feel hard done by when we have union representation - (that we pay good money for) - and they seem to be doing naff all to improve our t & c's when the airline is lording it's financial success!

Thankyou...next!
N :*

I hear a number of our worn out colleagues have asked the BHX based CC rep about the hideous hours and rosters etc, only to be told 'it's legal...'

Fighting our corner with pink slippers then?

Long may the exodus continue.

Nedul. Why pay good money for a sub-standard union? If I pay money to someone I want something in return 24/7. If you are willing to pay out money then me and BALPA will say thank you very much.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought you Turbo prop guys were the best paid in that sector.

Hudson

You hit the nail on the head there! Our TP pilots received a 20+% pay rise last year in a bid to retain them because the jet fleet was shrinking. It is no longer the case and we are still almost 50-50 TP/jet.
Our jet salaries are currently well below our comparators (I think 25% was quoted.) Where's the equality in that Balpa.....? Would it be because we don't have a longterm or fulltime Jet jockey on the council???????????

It really depends which are the comparitors when looking at salaries.

From the Balpa website (2004 figures)

Flybe jet capt 49,607 - 59,357
BA City express 49,905 - 63,562

Flybe TP Capt 42,263 - 52, 013
BACX 40,060 - 60,673

I'm not very good at maths, but that would seem to show that a flybe jet captain is somewhere between 0.6% and 7% down on what the most similar airline in the UK is paying, whilst the tp captains are between 5% up and 16% down depending upon where they are in years in rank.

Unless of course you are comparing flying the 146 with flying an A320 or a 737, which as Hudson states isn't really realistic - more seats = more pay.

The reason that I have bothered with this is that this shouldn't become a turboprop against jet issue - divide and rule is to the companies advantage, no one elses. The November seniority list shows that we have 27 more turboprop pilots than jet pilots, but as a lot of those joined since the payrise the split was probably fairly even at the time of the vote. Thus if the jet pilots were so set against the deal, and had cared enough to join Balpa and then bother to vote no, then the turboprop payrise would never have happened to the detriment of the jet pay scales (incidentally - although I fly the dash I voted against it for the reason I gave above).

What we now need is a paydeal to give both jet and turboprop either parity or an advantage over the competition at all points of the payscale from year 1 to year 15. As the tp year 1 is 5% ahead at the moment would that be a sensible aiming point?

Excrab,
The Balpa figures are out of date - check out the PPJN City Express figures -

Capt top £59,229; (£60,117 as of April 2005)

Capt base £51,153; (£51,920 as of April 2005)

This works out something like 4.7% more than Flybe Jet scale at base in April. So to get the Jet up to 5% more than City Express like the Dash, the jet would need a 10% pay rise and the Dash 1% :O

Somehow I cannot see this happening - indeed there are still CC members that still feel that the Dash should get the SAME pay as the jet.:sad:

Thanks anyway for voting No to the last offer but personally I don't think it should be dealt with in that way. It should not be left up to one fleets vote against another. They should simply look at what each A/C's average European pay scale is and try for a little above that.
If they don't sort this out soon there will no-one left to vote anyway on the 146.:mad:

Nedul.

A payrise of 20% on the prop fleet will never keep a Pilot flying a turbo prop. That wage increase did nothing to retain the pilots. It's all about Boys and there toys. If there is something dangling between their legs the boys will want to fly something that goes faster than the competition and flys at flight level nose bleed.

I will return to a turbo prop when the company pays me more than the easyjet driver sitting next to me on the ramp. That is the way it is and nothing is going to change.

My opinion is that after the last payrise, someone down in Exeter made a conscious decision that... "Now they've got their payrise, let's work those b@$*@*ds hard." Surely it's no coincidence that the move to a 6 on 2 off pattern occurred just after the rise, is it?

I would like to think that they can't work us any harder, but when the recent resignations start to kick in at the end of March, I think we're in for a nightmare Summer.

Nedul,

There is indeed a full-time jet jockey on the council. (not me!)

One of the bases recently had a meeting with the Balpa reps to discuss the wage increase. General feeling was that as we are now being compared to Ryanair and Easyjet and that we are flying similar routes to them that we should also get paid like them.

However, the pay submission is now in and in the hands of Flybe. Its a bit too late to change the submission but not too late for the Balpa reps to hear your views. I suggest that you arrange a base meeting with them to air your concerns. They seemed more than happy to meet with everyone if given the opportunity to do so.

flybe is currently 60% unionised and 40% not. I know that there are people not in Blapa who have views and grumbles concerning Flybe. If they want to get heard i suggest they join Balpa because that's the way it works.

And as for Balpa's failings well i think that's both parties faults. They don't know what to ask for if they don't hear from the workers. Conversely, perhaps yearly base meetings would aid communication.

I too feel underpaid and underloved and this summer is going to be a doozie what with all the resignations. The only thing we can hope for this year is that Flybe recognises its own failings and steps up the package to try and retain some of its staff.......is that a pig i saw float past my window?!

Right,

1. You will not return to a turbo prop for more money, simply because it is a turbo prop and is generally viewed as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Which therefore, makes a 25% payrise for T/P pilots a waste of money and time, because they'll all leave anyway. People are generally on turbo props because they either don't want to move base, have taken a command on it, or it's their first job.

2. The guys flying the jet are generally the more experienced people who have been with the company for longer and therefore are more loyal. Should this not be rewarded by having AT LEAST industry average salaries (and working conditions). These are the pilots who are not leaving the company in the lurch for the summer. But will they continue to be this loyal if levels of pay etc remain below average????? Especially as other airlines are now recruiting.

3. There is no full time jet pilot on the council.

4. I understand that the Independant Pilots Association gives legal cover etc.

There are 2 jet pilots on the CC, one of whom is part time. They both work FULL TIME as CC reps

Iron Curtain,

For your information:

I work with the balpa rep on the jet fleet. Don't worry about it...apology accepted.

Also the IPA is a very worthy organisation but to be fair, what have they done to improve things on your behalf?

How would you go about improving the situation? Surely a collective, cohesive voice is better than battling out terms and conditions on an individual basis. Granted we haven't got what we deserve but we should at least tell our reps what we want.

:E

Whispermode

Yes. there are two jet drivers on the Balpa Council

1 is part time. His financial interest is therefore pro rata.
1 is destined to the dash. Where do his interests lie.

(This is not a personal jibe. I do not queery their integrity. It is however a pertinent point!)