return of the BAE146?
 

The company are desperate for crews , Birmingham crews are trained on the EMB and the aircraft deliveries are held up so having to sub in to do that work as the Bae 146 fleet has dwindled after the leases ran out.

There is talk about getting the Bae 146s leased back again as a short fall for some of the problems with the crews trained on the EMB with no aircraft to fly will they be able to go back on the Bae146????????

Lets be perfectly honest ...........FLYBE management are a bunch of country bumpkins with dillusions of grandeur.

The company would never have survived but for massive amounts of money from the Walker trust "because Old man Walker had a soft spot for the business" (useful having a sentimental patron with a few billion in the bank)

They have cocked up this take over so completely that what is going to be left is time served pilots who are unemployable elswhere and kids with no hours looking for job 1 plus a few others.

The present advertising campaign assumes that its target candidates will have the same mental age as those who devised it. It is misleading rubbish!!

Training Captains on the 146 with 10 years service currently take home £3,300. This includes flight pay.

So about the same as an Easy F/O then?

It's an old old addage, Reap what you sow.

Flybe and Jet2 need a kick into reality.


But I hope that Jet2 management are sitting up and paying attention. Because in just 5 weeks they will deliver what they think is an adequate package to retain staff for 2007/8, and I fear it will fall far short.

Seems that crap management is universal and very well compensated.

At least pilots will be on the dole for only a short time.

Hudson

Surely not. A Barbie-jet line captain with the same 10 years gets £3500.

ps. I hope this frantic panicky recruiting that Flybe are suddenly doing is not a sign that the deal is lost:ooh:

£3300 is the bottom line. No BALPA subscription, 4% pension, no bond and it includes ALL flight pay. (No extra payments halfway through the month like many Airlines).

The errosion of pay and conditions is an inevitable consequence of the rise of the low cost carriers.flying is now so ridiculously cheap,where does the money come from to pay decent rates of pay,pay the leases on the aircraft,fuel,landing fees,ongoing training costs,insurance,uniforms,operational and engineering support,the list of cost goes on and on.ryanair only survive by securing no cost or even subsidised operations from and to obscure airfields,EU officials declaring some of these arrangements to be unfair and anti-competetive.As pilots for these operators,to have aspirations to the very comfortable pay scales enjoyed by the majors in the past,is an impossible dream.as flying has now become just public transport,one captain remarking that taking a flight with a well known no frills carrier was like catching a bus through the council estate !!,I am afraid that driving for these outfits is just like being a bus driver and i don,t mean a bus with an A in front of it !!The only chance and it,s a very slim one,is for major collapses in the lo cost market and the resulting reduction in capacity,driving up ticket prices.the downside is of course,a lot less pilots required,but those remaining enjoying improved pay and conditions.Not the future we all want,but those are the facts,we can,t change them !!

Bermuda

With respect, your post is total boll*cks!

Ryanair are one of the best payers in the biz. Easy are right up there too. In the States, Air South West-the original loco, are cracking payers.

Look at Ryanairs profits for fuxxackes!:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :ugh:

Flybe are crummy payers- but they make good profit.

Hudson. Thanks for your response. You make me so glad I'm not coming. But a bit sad for those already there and for my good mates in BACON. At least they will be pay protected for ages.

Things are getting a bit desperate!

Are you sure Flybe make a good profit? Their accounts seem to to show a perpetual loss year by year. The last ones to 31st march 2006 show a loss of something like £12 million on a £300 Million turnover, with an exceptional of £8 Million.

I am no accountant and maybe the loss is acceptable by the bean counters.

I also checked the CAA website whilst gearing up for an interview - their load factor in November was 57%, if I've read the numbers correctly, which is a lot lower than the other Low cost carriers.

Well Oldie
They claim 'a £30m difference between their own Profit and BaCon's loss'. in only 6 months of trading.
As Bacon lost about £6m last year, presumably Flybe claim a profit of c.£24m.

Brain fade,you are right about ryanair's pay,not too sure about the conditions or the workload,not having experienced their rostering,i can,t comment.Where i disagree with you totally,is your assumption that the current aviation market will continue,with ryanair and easyjet offering decent salaries.there is gross over capacity,the new passenger duty has enraged oleary,too many carriers chasing customers travelling only if the fares are cheap enough.something has to give and i am sure it won,t be too far in the future before the market adjusts accordingly.

Bermuda

I did not claim anything would continue. Neither do I make any assumptions.

I may look a bit like Mystic Meg or even smell like her, but I am not blessed with psychic powers.

AT THE MOMENT the locos are great payers.......except flybe. So go figure.

Oldie
I checked the website (spin ridden maybe) but they claim to have made £20.5m (before tax) in the six months preceeding 30/9/2006.

A porky then?

Could be judging by todays handouts.

What I don't understand is that Jim French openly admits to not liking Pilots. (Overpaid, Under worked and all that)

He then attempts to make the Pilot workforce look like fools by offering 90K. (When we all know that his offer does not really exist) and at the end of the day he believes he can recruit highly qualified and experienced skippers to fly his aircraft that nobody wants to fly.

Jim. I know you read pprune. Get a reality check. Your Pilot workforce has a great deal more intelligence than you could ever dream of. This profession is unique in the fact that the intelligence gradient is the opposite way to most other professions and subsequently recognises fools from a great distance.

Stop insulting, throw away your gripes and grudges and start to run Flybe like a business. If you can't, go and get a job putting out cones on the M5 and allow someone with a business mind save this regional airline from the brink of complete meltdown.

BermudaTriangle.

Not wanting to hijack a thread but am interested by your comment:

there is gross over capacity

Can you qualify this statement with some facts?

Sure scotty,just look at load factors,for example flybe 57%,ryanair and easyjet flying aircraft with plenty of empty seats,Monarch giving seats away on main routes,AGP,PMI,ALC for example.GB load factors dreadful on what were good revenue routes only 18 months ago.This summer will be a trying time for those at the price sensitive end of the market,just read the financial columns.

All flybe's figures are distorted.

Look at the way they record "On Time" flights. They calculate it by the arrival time and not the industry standard of departure time.

Anybody know where they get 90 grand from? HA HA HA!!!!!!

Like your post Mod.
The buck does indeed stop with Jim French who has taken Ba Connect pilots and indeed the rest of our profession (judging by this stupid advert) for complete fools.
He had absolutely no idea what he was getting into and has surrounded himself with yesmen who did not dare tell him that he had bitten off far more than he could chew.
Now the experienced Rashers have voted with their feet this ridiculous campaign to try to make up for what he has lost just exposes him as being way, way out of his depth.
If he had one scrap of common sense hed pull out of the deal.......whatever the cost.

Jim French's pedigree is in load control. I rest my case (no disrespect to load controllers).
Anybody who is foolish enough to believe they might get the quoted amount of cash from Flybe deserves all they get. The real money offered doesn't seem that bad for turboprop driving but everything else around it is crap..or so I'm told by a multitude of ex colleagues. I hope the guys can use this situation to their advantage and actually negotiate something meaningful for the future.
As for the 'merger', as long as the orange lodge are offering commands to those that drive the pencil jet then there's going to be problems with retention.

Brain fade
The six months to 30th september were the best 6 months of the year. summer load factor 70% odd (July as example), in load factor in November the load factor was 57%. The question is are they losing money currently and will the money they made over the summer exceed any winter losses ie over the year will they make a profit? Probably we'll not know until this time next year!
I am also curious as to why they have decided to go head to head with BMI Baby on the BHX ABZ route. A year ago there was no ABZ - BHX service, now there are two airlines at it! This maybe be one of the reasons for the comment - are there enough people who want to travel ABZ-BHX to justify 4 services per day?

BMI regional will be the next takeover target - they have PILOTS!!!!

spaceman

BACON had pilots.............right up til Flybe pitched up.
BMI reg' have pilots.................????????????

Mr French. Jet pilots don't like going back to turboprops.

As Al Gore would say, an inconvenient truth!:{ :{ :{ :{


Oldie

Roger.

Selective accounting then. Just fancy that.;)

Brain fade,from your voiciferous posts,can i assume you are one of the few Bacon guys who will reluctantly be shoe-horned into a turboprop seat,rather than take a chance in the real world and try a new company ??

Brain fart
If you don't want to stay -go!

It has to be said - The FlyBe roadshows are crap!

How on earth they expect people to join FlyBe as experienced FO's with such low pay is mental!

And that bloke with the microphone head.......Well, we'll say no more!!

I went, I saw, I left ASAP!:zzz:

Which one - Cheese?

Which show did you go to?

Leeds was crap!

The roadshow in Leeds was the worst thing I have ever seen. I thought Flybe would of employed professional people for this sort of thing. Obviously I was wrong.

Flybeeeeeeee


I fly a prop myself mate.....Dash8 infact.......in FlyBes time of crisis I would have thought they would have offered a decent package to people who have 1000s of hours on the same machines as they fly........and for those who qualify for a fast track command......but, oh no, its still 23k. or 50k..like it or lump it...I lumped it!:ok:



I even fell for their decent salaries advertised in Flight...which really is a terrible and dishonest trick.....When i got there (roadshow) and found id have to take a pay cut and the fact they didnt seem to know the future of FlyBe between them i decided against the idea......all they kept aying was - take the pay cut now and reap the benefits in the future.....also how flybe will be the biggest and most rewarding airline in the UK over the next few years!
Then he even mentioned how he would bond me another 4K for 3 years for a differences course!!:= Afterall, he said, the Dash Q400 isnt really a Dash8 and shouldnt be able to be done on a differences course because of the huge change in speed and cockpit layout!.......He then asked me why i was laughing my head off!


I said, I think i'll pass on that as i already have a Dash8 on my license....I picked up my free package (just the printouts from the website and the CD doesnt work btw:sad: ) and left....decision has been made!:sad:


Today, Microphone head and his friend met alot of experienced Dash8 pilots..from FO's to Training captains.....they didnt take one detail from any of us....all they wanted to do was tell what was on offer....if we want it then apply.....He seemed to assume we would all apply......unfortunately this is not the case!:{ :{

Im sorry everyone in FlyBe....and i really dont mean to disrescpect your employer....and mine is far from perfect too....but the impression i got today was a really bad one.....I cant help but feel that you're going to struggle to crew these planes except for using the low houred guys on the market!:{ :{

Flybe Recruitment
 

Dear Cynics,

Word from Exeter is that Flybe have had 250 quality applications in 12 days. As well as a lot of Wannabees.

Flybe 1 , Cynics 0 - I think.

:hmm:
The point of this thread has not really been to lambaste Flybe. It has rather been to discuss the discrepancies, to use the word politely, between that which Flybe have advertised as a reward package in Flight International and that which is in reality upon the table. The two would not seem to bear much resemblance to each other, unless of course, one is extremely adept at imaginative interpolation.
The roadshow was a bit of a farce by all accounts. Not much of a constructive nature would seem to have emerged from two held yesterday other than the fact that one should continue to apply on line, which slogan seems to be a little bit of a company mantra. It would appear fair to say that neither were personal details taken nor were incentives held forth in the drive to recruit new pilots of any rank?
That is all very well except that, if a company needs recruits, it behoves that prospective employer to do a little more than distribute a few glossy pamphlets and a CD of questionable quality.
Now this may all be very arrogant but be that as it may; there are plenty of experienced pilots about who can actually pick and choose, to a certain extent, what they do with their lives and those of their families. The presentations of yesterday were surely, at least by all accounts, hardly impressive enough to attract many such long term candidates?
If some among the contributors to these threads may work for Flybe so much the better for them. Feedback to any employer should be an important tool in structuring future recruitment campaigns that may become necessary.
However, to rather rudely tell contributors to these pages to vanish in a puff of smoke and then, as it were, in the same breath of venom to threaten to forward these Pprune pages to the prospective employer concerned does nothing but draw ridiculous attention to the questionable attitudes of both parties concerned?:8

CavortingCheetah! - Top man...thats exactly how it is!


As a Dash8 pilot, I went to see FlyBe with a view to some decent terms and conditions, maybe even the 50k they advertised would be nice, but this wasnt the case.

A little shabby round the edges for the UKs leading regional airlrne id say.

That said, fair play to everyone who works there, I wouldnt mind a crack on the Q400 myself but for them to call the Q400 anything other than a turbo prop is a little bit imaginative. Afterall, if you can do it with a differences course from the 300 then it is still- just a Dash8!

I just can't believe the rubbish I read on these pages from people that have not and hopefully never will work for us....
The money's not everything. I for one can't complain, a pay rise at the end of last year, a payrise next month and one again next year. I live within 20 minutes of my home (regional base). I take the long days, I take the disrupted days, but I also take the short and sweet days where I'm done and off duty from 11 in the morning and have a whole day free.
At the end of the day I am a name down in Exeter, I'm not a staff number in BA or Easyjet. I am known by name by my fleet manager, training manager, rosterer and even personnel.
We have built a successful little business and I've played my part in it.
I look forward to working with like-minded people from wherever who share my professionalism.

Many of us are known by name too. Given the choice I'll take the extra 40K ta very much. The rest is the same. Same !!!!, different airline, different payscale. I'm not knocking Flybe but don't pretend it's something it isn't. Turboprop Easyjet, with salaries to match.

oh my word.

Just heard. No taxis in Flybe!!! You have to drive yourself to all training courses AND Flight duties.

How can that be? Everybody is going to be on the BACON scheduling agreement, with all the perks that brings. I know, because dozens of BACON crew have been saying so in these very pages for ages now. Surely they can't be wrong... no, surely not... :=:=:ugh:

Announcement tomorrow morning (1 March 2007). Just got a glimpse of an email while I was in logistics. Can't say what was in it as i might get sussed out!!!! Good luck guys.

Modderator

I think the statement that you "saw an email today in Logistics" will suss you out more effectively than revealing the contents will! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

You could always erase you post I suppose... ah but I just quoted you, didn't I! If you ask really nicely... :}:}:}

Uncovered

You say flyBE has had 250 quality applications in the last 12 days..

Well so has easyjet, BA, GB, DHL, thomsonfly, Air2000 etc etc, then you get 125 invited to interview, 75 bother to show up, 30 offered positions, 10 show up for day 1 !!!!!

10/250= a whopping 4%

Shags

Direct entry flybe 145
 

Sounds like impossible doesn't it? On the other hand a lot of Bacon guys left Easy for the better deal and they are short of crew on the 145. Since Flybe is keeping the 145's going for the middle of 2009, they need pilots for them. Flybe is very cost aware and would not put Dash8 rated pilots on the 145. I.E. BHX 145 will be there with at least 5 from 8 till end 2008, after whic they will be fased out. Also about 60 pilots have been recruited lately and doing their line training on the 145 now.
You just got to be lucky I think as you might as well start on the Dash8Q400:cool:

Flybe working hours
 

I have done a search and found that the Flybe rosters are:

"Typical roster 5+2 but with the odd 6+3 or 4+1 thrown in to change the days off."

Can anyone tell me how long the average working day is? When do you start and finish on an early or late (roughly)?