It is our CEO's openly-stated policy that she wants easyJet to offer permanent contracts to all pilots after 2 years as flexicrew - if BALPA will sign up to the offer about to be made. The problem is that the offer about to be be made is not the same as the one our permanent pilots currently enjoy. Not unreasonably in my opinion, BALPA will be reluctant to accept a deal on behalf of the flexicrew pilots that massively reduces their remuneration over several years. Possibly not surprisingly we have a potential impasse here. It will come as no surprise to find out that the Company blame BALPA for 'not being available' over the summer to discuss the matter due to the changing over of the Company Council. Whether that is true or not is open to debate, but the end result is that the flexicrew issue has risen to be THE issue that affects everything at easyJet. Having heard all sides of the argument, my own view is that there will have to be some considerable compromise on both sides.

Love it or hate it, there is massive downward pressure on airline salaries throughout the whole industry and easyJet has to compete. Therefore I expect the final agreement to accept some form of reduction in terms and conditions in order to get the rump of flexicrew pilots onto permanent contracts within the company. I do not expect either party to be overwhelmingly excited at the results but that probably means the deal will be about right. There is still a lot of water to go under the bridge, and it is clear to everyone that a deal must be in place quickly - whether that can be achieved remains to be seen. Once again, I back BALPA 100% and see any delay as simply a sign they are fighting tooth and nail for the best result they can achieve given the limitation of their legal room to manoeuvre.

There is the usual dance going on here with the company not even wanting to engage with BALPA on any discussion over flexicrew at the moment. In turn BALPA have , rightly , decided to take a much tougher stance. From various newsletters and reps emails it seems that the CC have put pressure on Big BALPA to make this a wider industry wide campaign. I think they have a duty to pursue the Ryan's and easy's of the world to stop the casualisation of the pilot workforce!

I personally don't think Carolyn's offer will even be credible and that it may mark a long protracted (surprise surprise) negotiation. All the Flexicrew I have flown with tell me they are joining BALPA in droves and I think they will prevail but any idea of the company comin up with anything reasonable is slim to nil! Think Merlin!

ADM,

Can you give us more detail on what is about to be informed as I see nothing on the Balpa forum?. Cheers!

I will be extremely reluctant to vote yes to any deal that reduces T&C's because WE HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SECOND OFFICER SCALE and the company did not honour it.

I agree re Second Officer scale! Our base Rep has told us that the company wont even meet or talk about flexicrew with the CC, the official line from HR is that BALPA do not represent the, so they won't talk. The fact that there is now a campaign and legal options open to the pilots will force the company to try and do something. The good news is that the Collective bargaining for pilots rests with BALPA so any new contract has to be approved by the members ! My guess is that Carolyn will offer something around 20-25k on permanent flexible roster and no loyalty pay. Yep, that'll go down well! Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised!

If Easy take large numbers of CTC Flexi Crew cadets. Dont they have to meet a certain ratio of experienced pilots to less experienced flexi cadets for the CAA?

Also, are their aircraft insurance premiums high using CTC flexi cadets or contract pilots?

I saw the posts regarding self employed, I work in I.T and the UK inland revenue caught up with many I.T contractors in the last 10 years and closed out many loop holes. Also IR35 as mentioned on here was an impact and originally brought in because of the I.T industry contractor market.

Perhaps one day HMRC will look at the self employed contractor models such as Flexicrew etc.

Why would EZY offer any more when people are queuing around the block to sign up on the current deal (whatever that is today)?

The same could be said of the majority of other industries at the moment. However, this is where the union should be protecting new entrants conditions. The only people that can do that are those that have a vote.

Just a genuine question: why would the easyjet pilots push for anything less than the current first officer scale, when the company is making so much money?

I can understand why the management is trying to keep a statu-quo or to offer a sub-scale one, but not why Balpa would be willing to accept anything else at a time where HRMC is going to put pressure on to the company....

OATNetjets - just to clarify, there is no suggestion of easyJet pilots pushing for anything less than the current First Officer scale. There is a suggestion that the Company will be pushing for it, and the pilots' union has to respond to that.

ROSCO328 - I do not know the specific details, and I do not know if even BALPA does yet. What I do know is that there have been public comments from the the CEO, the Group Ops Director and the Head of Flight Operations relating to the need for BALPA to agree to different terms and conditions to the ones currently enjoyed. I have no doubt what that means and I cannot see any way that BALPA will agree to them. I fully understand Epsilon Vaz's position, but I am not sure that we will be able to maintain that as the journey unfolds. I would gladly fight this one, but to an extent they have us over a barrel - our job is to maximise the deal available.

What is a commuter letter?

In what way are we over a barrel? If the pending push is successful then the only ones over a barrel are the company as they will be forced to employ people on the existing contract. The aircraft won't fly themselves.

I have been flying for easyjet as flexicrew for nearly 2 years now and I can tell you that I care very much about the money!
I think perhaps when people hear the words "new entrant" it doesn't quite register with the masses that the person going for said contract might have several thousand hours and would like to be paid and treated the same as others have been in the past. Especially given easyjets current financial performance.

I would much prefer Balpa to tread the longer legal pathway in order to get the right result, rather than accept a sub standard B scale contract.

The reason EZY is doing well financially is because it's managing its cost base with flexi etc in its many guises. This needs to continue to meet the forecasts.

Given that Flybe has just announced it needs to reduce its operating costs, this further increases the pressure on cost across the industry.

Protecting new entrants would have been very good if it stopped flexi, but we're all stuck with that type of RHS pricing model now, and given that people are still queuing up, then £25k for the RHS sounds right.

Company will offer s##t contract for new entrants
BALPA will reject and put a claim on a proper contract
Company will jump up and down about how disengaging BALPA are and how they are ruining Flexicrew's dream.
Legal pursuit of agencies and company
Long protracted negotiation
New entrant contract agreed
Pilots complain all this flexicrew negotiating has distracted from pay talks & rostering
some pilots leave BALPA as "let down"


The dance starts all over again

EcamSuprise

Yes I would move to Europe for a year. Unfortunately the last round of European contracts were for either Lisbon (far from great) contract or for a Swiss contract which is close to impossible to get transferred back to the UK from.
One thing that would concern me though is what would stop the company from putting me on a new entrant contract if I tried to return to the uk?

I have heard all the excuses time and time again.

The fuel price is high.

We have to remain competitive.

Flexi-crew pilots offer flexibility.

This company will not stop, I repeat, will not stop until each and every pilot flying their aeroplanes is on a pay per hour contract.

I will not support any negotiated contract for "new-entrant" pilots that is in any way inferior to what is currently available when this company is making £ multi-million profits and the board insist on raping these profits for themselves.

Excuse the ensuing naivety, as I can't quite see the bigger picture.
Ezy employ roughly 2000-2500 pilots so 1000-1200 fos. Lets say half are flexi, so 600.

Pay of roughly £40k a year, after ctc/parc take a cut. Put all the fos on perm contracts at the same as current f/os (roughly 50k). Thats 6 million out of the possible £320 million profit and now, quite remarkably you have a much happier workforce.

OK, so they want some flexibility, why not make new cadets do frv for 6/12/18 months before going on to this so that they will always have a number of guys on frv but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Its fag packet maths and I know there is a lot more to it but what do I know

'All new cadets on FRV for 6/12/18 months'

With expansion slowing/stopping the amount of new fo's, wether cadets or experienced is also slowing. easyJet have it extremely good at the moment in regards to FO's, I'm of the view they will not give it up without a serious fight and will look to expand it into the left seat. In my opinion, anyone who believes anything else is deluded.

I was wondering this as well. How come those with companies that supply services to EZY via the intermediary companies like Parc are not subject to IR35? Presumably they all wear EZY branded uniforms and most likely have EZY business cards (if they have them)? Or is setting up their company in Ireland some kind of ruse to get round this?