If you reduce your fleets and employees by 25%, then of course it will take many years to recover to 2019 levels!

You would need expansion of 33%.

Is this actually being proposed in Aer Lingus ?

No it's not..... 50% PT probably getting back towards 80% as the schedule recovers whenever. Combination of unpaid leave, and VS and part time. Redundancy would only be a last resort and strictly on inverse seniority (LIFO).

​​​​​​Lots of cheap pilots at the bottom of the list, get rid of them and the unit costs go through the roof.

Department management would have come with a cost ( along with a date ) where its more cost efficient to keep staff on rather than making redundencies (which also comes at cost) .
The numbers will only go up as time goes on without any profitable flying.

DurIng the Great Depression the US government embarked on some huge infrastructure projects to help a beleaguered economy. It could be argued that the economic damage that C19 is doing to our economy that we need similar large projects such as HS2 and the 3rd runway now more than ever..

What would you do if and when you find you are going to be made compulsorily redundant, as either a captain or first officer, based solely on LIFO?

That is a distinct probability in BA, Virgin and Aer Lingus. In BA and Virgin it will probably be those caught after both airlines have chopped pilots on a particular fleet. TUI, yet to announce redundancies do, I believe, have some form of matrix but it is likely to be weighted in favour of LIFO, which it should not be.

An idea might be to get together with colleagues in the same boat, research the most recent equality and anti-discrimination legislation, which states that LIFO cannot be used as the only method.

Once that is accepted and because LIFO isn’t fair as it is indirect age discrimination against the young put some dosh in a pot and employ a good (most important) employment lawyer to, in the first instant fire a warning shot at both your company and your representatives (BALPA) to pre-warn them that formal action will be forth coming if they do not follow current employment legislation with regard to making people redundant.

Although LIFO is a straightforward and simple method for making people redundant it was removed from the statute books because it was deemed to be unfair.

If redundancies are going to be made they should be fair. All parties to the redundancy negotiations are responsible for ensuring that current legislation is followed.

Whether it is or is not age discrimination, LIFO (and seniority in general) is by definition a form of discrimination, and one that it would be hard to justify in the latest iterations of EU and UK employment law.

Panel 3. You appear to have missed the most important point.

The most recent equality and anti-discrimination legislation states that LIFO cannot be used as the sole method for redundancy selection.

I know that if I was going too affected by LIFO as the sole selection method I would be challenging it.

I hope you would agree that it is important that fair criteria are used to select individuals for redundancy. If LIFO is one of the benchmarks used it should not be weighted more heavily than other criteria such as disciplinary records, attendance records (Absence for pregnancy should be ignored), work performance, qualifications, experience etc.

You appear to have more faith in unions than I do and few have faith in management. If the contract you sign does not meet with current legislation then it can be trampled all over. Legislation also changes and any changes must be reflected in an individual’s contract of employment.

At the end of the day this is going to be a fight about people keeping their job and those threatened with redundancy purely on the basis of LIFO should fight it tooth and nail.

that would be a fair/reasonable way to approach this. IAG senior management on the other hand...

Am I missing the point here? (Quite possibly).

It strikes me that BA wish to remove at a stroke all the disparities in pay, allowances, and pensions. These exist in the pilot and cabin crew workforces, and have been a bone of contention with management for a long time.

These disparities may also exist in other parts of the BA workforce too. I imagine the same objective applies i.e.a level playing field with regard to "competitive" terms and conditions .

I am not insinuating that this is a good thing, nor otherwise. It seems that many of the suggestions and arguments being put forward here ignore these sometimes gross differences in pay and rewards for employees doing the same job.

The issue for Balpa here (with such large potential numbers involved) is that pressing on with trying to maintain pure LIFO from the bottom of the MSL will not deliver the required savings for BA (simply put you’re getting rid of the cheapest pilots at the lower rungs of PP34). That poses something of a quandary as inevitably that will in turn mean a greater number of total redundancies in order to make up the difference. So do you hold firm on the principle of LIFO and accept there will be a greater number of casualties or do you try to limit the number of those affected by CR by trying to acquiesce to an extent with the BA plan but holding them to LIFO where possible? Hopefully we can get away without any CR but I think that’s an absolute pipe dream right now considering where we are and where we’re about to go with the 14 day quarantine on incoming pax.

[QUOTE=Once that is accepted and because LIFO isn’t fair as it is indirect age discrimination against the young put some dosh in a pot and employ a good (most important) employment lawyer to, in the first instant fire a warning shot at both your company and your representatives (BALPA) to pre-warn them that formal action will be forth coming if they do not follow current employment legislation with regard to making people redundant.

.[/QUOTE]

Great idea. Based on personal experience during a takeover, I strongly recommend a big city law firm. Forget high street solicitors etc.,

We used Slaughter and May, heavyweights, recommended to me by an old friend who is now Chairman of a huge and succesful UK company.They were not cheap but were highly effective and got results.

Nice video
 

Why is LIFO unfair (based on it being discriminatory) when the whole purpose of the exercise is to discriminate between staff in order to remove some of them (those who have been discriminated against) from the payroll ? Surely, ANY method used to determine who should stay or go is discriminatory.

Video - am sure the ubiquitous Labi Sifre will be dusted off and rolled out soon 😭

if onay they’d operated those flights from Prestwick in the snow or pulled the window blinds down or handed out a cold towel !

Am hugely sympathetic to the pilots though in this situation......

Somethings are illegal to 'discriminate' upon - age is one of them. Its my understanding that LIFO in our industry is likely so highly correlated with age that it could be illegal.

I can't think of a 'fair' way to decide; I don't think one exists (and I imagine what one perceives as fair would depend on their own circumstances!). As I've said before, ultimately, the business don't care about fairness and will employ whatever methodology suits them best.

Lifo
 

In many airlines collective agreements clearly state the LIFO principle as the way to go. In our careers in major companies seniority is held sacred and something that binds us to a certain employer, which is actually a very good thing.

The big dillema companies and unions are facing in a crisis of this magnitude is as said above, cutting of the lower end of the seniority list according to LIFO principles will reduce headcount as per reduced capacity but only just that. Financially speaking it would be like a drop in the ocean. To achieve a substantial cost reduction a huge amount of pilots on the lower end of the seniority list would have to be made redundant. If the top of the seniority list would leave/retire/ be made redundant, a much smaller number of pilots would need to leave to achieve the same cost reduction.

In my opinion possible solutions could be temporary collective sharing of full time employment by working and earning a reduced % similar to the required manpower reduction, another option would be a voluntary redundancy package for the top end of the seniority list, close to retirement which then would (partially) be funded by the rest of the pilot community.

Why is LIFO ageist? BA employs pilots from across the age spectrum.

The reason being is that because younger people are most likely to be selected for redundancy and that amounts to a disadvantage based on age and may give rise to a claim for indirect age discrimination. Because of the reasonably recent enactment of the equality and anti-discrimination legislation, LIFO cannot now be used as the only measure to decide who is going to lose their jobs in a redundancy situation

It’s true if you were to take the 1200 at the bottom of the MSL you would probably get at least a few from all age groups.

However if you then look at the top 3000 that would be ‘safe’ under LIFO, would there be any under the age of 30? By virtue of simply not being old enough to reach the required years of service to be that high.

If you end up firing 100% of your staff that were in the 18-30 age bracket it could be a fairly strong argument for age discrimination.

I don’t have a solution by the way, just saying the argument that LIFO wouldn’t take out all of the youngest employees is not strictly true.

I suppose that's a fair point.

I think others above have answered this well. But I'll try too -

I propose a wager. I bet you that the average age of a member of the bottom 10% of the MSL is lower than that of the top 10%.

There maybe outliers but you know that age and seniority are highly correlated, hence you will not accept this bet and hence why LIFO is ageist.

LIFO as fair as you can get as it does not use any means of personal discrimination. You could start looking at sim grades, sickness, helpfulness, punctuality and any number of subjective qualities, ultimately it will be what the union negotiates with the management. Redundancy is not fair, but LIFO is easy to understand and simple to administer although it will not be favoured by the company as it will probably incur retraining costs and they keep the ones they would like to be rid of.

Fairness is of course a subjective thing. But would you argue that its fair for a senior pilot, a year or two off retirement, to keep his position whilst the junior pilot with the young family who has already lost his job at Monarch and TC if the last few years loses his?

Of course, lifes not fair; but if that was what we strived for, I can't see anything fairer than names out of a hat. I'm not seriously suggesting it but maybe FIFO would have some merit in the sense of fairness - the pilot leaving would have benefited from the longest period of continuous employment.

It's an interesting situation because a) BALPA have stated they want LIFO, but also b) their primary focus is to protect jobs. Anyone with brain can see these two items are mutually exclusive. One PP24 long haul skipper costs roughly as much as three PP34 DEPs, so if they have to meet a pre-defined cost reduction and they truly want LIFO, they risk costing jobs as opposed to saving them. Let's not forget that several of the reps may well be vulnerable under the proposed BA terms themselves, so I expect there to be some kind of hash involved if/when CR is required.

As has been said elsewhere, CR in the current climate could quite conceivably spell end of one's flying career. At this point it seems almost inevitable but I truly hope everything is being considered to avoid as much CR as possible.

I would strongly suggest that to use LIFO, as the sole method of selection for redundancy, is against the law.

Although once a common method of selection, the use of LIFO reduced drastically with the enactment of age discrimination laws in the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 and the Equality Act 2010.

BA and BALPA can agree what they like, whether it is in line with current legislation or not. If they use LIFO as a sole method for redundancy and it is not challenged in court they will get away with it. If it is challenged it will tie both BA and BALPA up for months and years and that is before both sides start digging into their pockets to pay for their defence.

I know what I would be doing in the current climate if I were threatened with redundancy based on LIFO and wanted to keep my job.

Pilots who find themselves without job in a cockpit over the next few months are going to struggle for some considerable time before another flying job comes around.

Names out of a hat has to be the worst possible solution for everyone!

Many left more lucrative positions in the good times to start at the bottom of a long list to gain some semblance of career stability by increasing their buffer from the bottom.

Many also avoided slightly riskier fleets and bases to give themselves a better chance.

Names out of a hat means you’re at an equal chance of being let go during each crisis for the rest of your career. In seniority based airlines that’s monumentally depressing!

88.. Making the deal as palatable as possible is the task of the negotiators. If they are clever, they can propose terms that will encourage the seniors to leave but it is not going to be so easy now as there are not going to be other opportunities, so its has to be cash above the statutory minimum. In the 3 downsizings I have been through, most people left voluntarily, but there were other jobs around then. Bad times for all, your hat may be a good idea.

I can assure you that nearer the bottom of the list under LIFO is equally depressing.

I’ve been at the wrong end of LIFO before, so have many other people. Now these same people are being told it should be names out of a hat instead? Utter cobblers I’m afraid. Everyone joined BA knowing it was seniority driven and for what it’s worth if BA were to chop 1130 off the bottom of the MSL this time it’d be my turn again unfortunately but I still wouldn’t argue against LIFO on principle, for the simple reason that it’s completely transparent. Nothing about this situation is fair for anybody. How could anybody in BA have expected last year with the company recording multi billion profits again that just months later they’d be facing a trip to the dole office? Comments about choosing to be on the wrong fleet are ridiculous, nobody could or should have planned for this. My personal view is anyone who escapes this round will only be receiving a stay of execution anyway. There’s clearly a lot more pain down the road.

I would like to note that discrimination works both ways on any particular characteristic. Just because the common cases of age discrimination are old people, of gender discrimination are women, of sexual orientation discrimination are homosexuals, of ethnic/racial discrimination are people from Black, Middle-Eastern and Asian backgrounds, does not mean that discrimination the other way is any more permitted by law.

Having hiring or firing criteria that penalise younger more than older, or having all the gay managers fire the straight guy because he's not gay like them, a company run by BAME people refusing to hire anyone White, and so on, does not make those ethically correct or legal either.

Not only does LIFO risk age discrimination, it also risks discrimination against other characteristics such as ethnicity or sexual orientation - because those employed longer were hired when discrimination was acceptable or not enforced, a company may well have hired only straight white middle class British people in the past. Having more recently provided opportunities for all, as legally and ethically required, they might now have a more balanced workforce but all the BAME, gay, etc, employees were hired relatively recently. This is particularly important for "lifetime career" companies, and BA is one of those (railways are another). If BA makes the most recently employed people redundant they'll lose many of their non-White, non-British, non-middle-class employees. That would also be discrimination, even if not intentional. BA has a good reputation for treating people much the same regardless of origin, orientation, etc (they all get treated equally badly these days...) but even inadvertent discrimination is still discrimination.

An employer must act positively to avoid discrimination in this day and age, mere passive uncaring is not enough. Lawyers will come calling if they do not.

Rex - I'm trying to unravel your comment about why LIFO is fair but I'm afraid your arguement makes no zero sense to me. I do agree with your assertion about a stay of execution though, unfortunately.

Anyway, I've made one too many comments on a topic which I think is going to be irrelevant, so I'm out. All the best to those affected.

My argument is that nothing is fair about redundancy but that LIFO is as transparent as it gets. Simple as that.

True. But it also sees the most financially precarious out of a job while those nearing the end of their careers sit happily on whopping salaries.

I sit well below the chopping line. LIFO seems fair on paper, but my young family who are probably going to lose their house would beg to differ.

I’m not sure about there being further redundancies beyond this.
Even WW’s pessimistic view is that we will be back at 2019 levels in 2023. If we estimate approx 100 retirements in 21/22/23 that will leave them needing to rehire almost 1500 pilots. How many can BA usually bring through in a year? 300? 350? I have no doubt they would like to save the cost of 1100+ pilots right now, but I don’t think they would actually want that many heads out the door.

I have a lot of sympathy for your situation having been in it before and had the same discussion about LIFO. The problem is, not everyone is in your particular situation. There will be some junior pilots who have no debts, no partners and children and a stack of cash in the bank. Should they take the hit and you be saved on the basis of luck or life choices? Inevitably, you end up with modified LIFO being the only sane course of action. Just a historical note that I was involved with a demotion issue where an early adoption of Modified Lifo was used to allow for gender and to avoid the company being liable to unlimited damages against a charge a sexual discrimination. (worth noting that simple claims for unfair dismissal are limited). 10 years later the fact that a tiny amount of people were saved out of seniority order still caused, shall we say, 'comments'. Best o luck.

Just do a Lufthansa job on it. Everyone gets reamed but nobody gets completely screwed

I'm not quite sure why people are even discussing this very issue about pilot redundancy methods. BA (and Virgin) have both said they're in a fight for survival. BA (and Virgin) have both said that certain fleets will be retired/wound down. BA (and virgin) have both announced a consultation process on redundancy. BA (and Virgin) have both stated that redundancies are to be based on operational requirements i.e. fleets remaining with any further based on Seniority.

Based on the above, can anybody explain to me why either airline would want to retain B747/A380 pilots to then have to get rid of A320/A330 pilots. I'd like to understand how retaining type rated pilots surplus to requirements is going to help an airline in a so called fight for survival?

If LIFO is not applied by airlines can anybody tell me what powers the Unions have to overturn such a decision?

‘If LIFO is not applied by airlines can anybody tell me what powers the Unions have to overturn such a decision?’

LIFO should not be applied by the airlines as a sole method of selecting people for compulsory redundancy. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 and the Equality Act 2010 changed the ‘rules’.

BALPA would not try and overturn a LIFO decision as in BA and Virgin LIFO is their policy. BALPA would agree to LIFO. Therefore it would be up to an individual, or a group of individuals to take action against both the airlines, who would be the main culprits and should be first in the firing line and then BALPA who would be supporting them.

I would suggest a good first step would be to get assurances from both BALPA and BA/Virgin that they are going to abide by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 and the Equality Act 2010.

If they both say they will then monitor the situation very closely. If both duck and dive, as I suspect they will, get a group together and fire a warning shot across their bows that legal action will follow if they do not follow the legislation.

As someone said above, use a reputable London law firm to send the first missile with the treat of going nuclear later on.

Remember it is your job that is at risk and selection for compulsorily redundancy must be done fairly and in line with current legislation.