Any rumour from inside the camp yet with regard to the Airbus gig? More Aircraft? More Crew? use of the Hold pool? Command upgrades etc? Or a fleet and crew shuffle and route cuts to release crew and Airframes to run chester. Hope it's positive for all involved.:ok:

Who says they are recruiting anyway?

I suspect they would have to run courses if they got extra airframes anyway Aerofoil. Im sure there are some redundant baby pilots out there with emb ratings though. Get in there guys!

Spoke to a friend at Eastern they are under the impression that a % of Eastern guys are to be taken on by bmi under TUPE

Having experienced management doing what they deem is required over what the crew may think is right, I would imagine no one will know what is going to happen re guys that lost jobs being taken on the emb over guys with existing ratings, and the guys in the pool for regional, some having been there a very long time.

I think there is a distinction between regional and baby or mainline. It is regional as an entity that have won the contract, are they obliged to give the job to a pilot from another part of the bmi group?

My present company do as they please, with no consultation and the crew, always last to know.

I'm not entirely sure of the rules regarding TUPE etc etc. However I always thought it applied to a company taking over another, not to a company winning a contract from another one. Is there a reference to TUPE somewhere?

Anyone got any further info relating to this TUPE situation. Did the current contract with EZE come to an end? Or has it been pulled for operational reasons? Any further word on how the operation is going to be created i.e the rumoured extra Aircraft or a reorg of current Routes,Aircraft and crew to release capacity for the contract. If its extra units, any word spreading about courses, the hold pool, crew relocation etc?:ok:

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TUPE has been found to apply to:

• mergers
• sales of a businesses by sale of assets
• a change of licensee or franchisee
• the gift of a business through the execution of a will
• contracting out of services
• changing contractors
• where all or part of a sole trader's business or partnership is sold or otherwise transferred.

I'm pretty sure TUPE will apply to eastern crew already based at Chester. No doubt the devil will be in the detail.

I believe tupe would've applied to the flightline/Scasta contract, had flightline not gone bust, before the contract had been finished.

I can't believe bmir would take on a contract that meant they would have to take on TUPE wokers who would require type ratings. They will just cut routes elsewhere to free up crew. Besisdes, to be fair, if they were forced to TUPE then new workers would still have to pass selection surely.

Contracts like this can be very lucrative, you don't have to sell any tickets, you get paid if the aircraft is full or empty. So anyone bidding to take it over will have factored in the cost of any tupe implications, obtaining extra aircraft etc. Small change really over the life of a 3 or 5 year contract. In situations where tupe applies, but is ignored then you are basically in an employment tribunal dealing with cases of unfair dismissal.

If a Filton to Tolouse service is also included, then more crew will be required to run it than the current Chester-Filton route. Contracts like this are normally quite strict about level of service etc, so a spare aircraft or good engineering cover may have to be in place

Suspect it will end up with a couple of extra aircraft being leased in, some tupe crew from eastern coming across, some seconded crews from other bmir bases, and possibly over time bmir establishing a perm base at one of the locations involved?

Does TUPE really matter??? It only really protects pay not T&Cs, I may be wrong but if Eastern crews go to BMIR would it not mean better pay?

I guess in this situation its either move to another Eastern base or take what BMIR offers assuming they do in order to stay based at home. Good luck to all!

Please forgive my ignorance on the protection of employment laws, but if the previous Airbus contract had finished and bmi regional have won the new contract would TUPE still apply?

No idea if this is the case, just trying to find out.

Can't see Tupe working with flightdeck unless already rated. In addition, if joining regional they would have to have the same contract as the rest of us and then they almost certainly would be sent north. Wiki tupe and I'll think it would come under the exceptions. As for cabin crew that may be a different story.

d and F

So how have eastern run the chester op up to now. Were the chester crews contracrt bound to only opetrate from chester, or did they rotate to other bases when required as with any other company? As EZE have many other bases, why wouldn't these guys be rebased to the likes of Leeds or Newcastle. When they stopped flying the Brussels route out of Southampton the crews didnt sideslip into Flybe, all be it that wasn't under a private contract. Note on PPJN suggests EZE are asking crew to go Part Time to prevent redundancies. In any case if there are extra Aircraft joining the fleet to cover the contract, wouldn't guys be starting the type rating ASAP to meet the July start date. :confused:

Another point under Tupe - Eastern have skippers with a lot less hours than BMIr require.Therefore they would be going in the RHS. But under TUPE would they be expecting to retain their J41 skippers salary?
From the above I'd be surprised if Tupe applied here, there seem to be too many ifs, buts and maybes.

TUPE is there to remove a lot of the ifs, buts, and maybes and is a legal right of the emplyees, but there will still be many grey areas.

info on TUPE in the link below.

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file20761.pdf

Silverknapper

Does not apply to Chester based skippers regarding hours, trust me

So how will this work if regional take option B to start the chester operation? What if they do not recieve more units and cut the current schedule to release Aircraft for the Chester operation. The company are not currently recruiting or running courses for their hold pool, so it would appear they have all the crew they require at this time. Therefore the aircraft that move already have crew to operate them. Do these guys get made redundant so that the EZE TUPE crews get a Job???:eek: As mentioned in a post further up the page. When EZE closed Southampton the crew were given the option to move on leave. They have closed their Manchester Crew base also. So as it has been said on PPJN they are currently fishing for guys to go Part Time or people would need to be made redundant. Would this change the TUPE rules etc.:confused:

One of the most important reasons for TUPE is to protect workers when a contract changes hands. Its purpose is to maintain the continuity of employment, terms and conditions so that workers are not disadvantaged when a new company takes over an existing contract. However on closer inspection of the TUPE rules there are "outs" for the new company and the one that may concern pilots is that an employment contract may be varied where the sole or principle reason is an economic, technical or organisational one. In this context "technical" could mean training pilots on a new aircraft type (Berr reads: "...a reason relating to the nature of the eqipment or production processes which the new employer operates (i.e. a technical reason)..."). I know this was of concern to the Flightline guys prior to loosing the IAC contract.

But hasn't the old contract finished and bmi regional have secured the new contract? If this is the case does TUPE still apply??!

Forget Tupe and it looks like no new A/C at the moment, but as ever in aviation the situation is fluid.

D and F :8