AFAIK none of the 737 guys have been offered winter work, so it's unlikely Belfast will be seeing any FlexiCrew over the winter.

cadets on the airbus have been offered job for winter, with a minimum of 17 working days a month.

Is that true windcheck??

Can you provide me with details of this? 17 days a month is just a full time job, and if that really is the case these guys should have full time contracts and the associated benefits.

If we allow this to continue as a workforce, in 20 years time we'll all be floating contractors..... :\

sorry, my mistake, they have been offered a flexi crew contrct for winter with a minimum of 12 days a month and the salary is 2500 GBP plus flight pay per month.

windcheck - I am not sure that your information is totally correct. It may well be, but it is certainly at variance with what I have been told only this morning. Do you know anyone personally who has been offered this winter deal? I certainly do not, and whatever may be in the rumour mill may turn out to be very different to reality.

I flew with a great CTC cadet today who is due to leave easyJet at the end of his 6 months in October. He has been offered two separate 'extensions' to his contract - the first for 2 weeks or thereabouts and the second for around 3 weeks (cannot recall the exact numbers but it is of that order). The deal he is being offered is £210/day plus plus sector pay with no overnight allowances regardless of where they use him.

I am not aware of a single person being offered the winter contract being suggested - if it turns out they are then I believe that it would cause great upset within the CTC cadet community. You cannot have a few guys being offered a whole winter contract and the rest just picking up a few scraps on an ad-hoc basis.

Belfast is only overcrewed on Captains, not FOs.

None of the CTC FO's on the 737 are being kept on, however there will be some other CTC FOs brought in to Belfast over the winter who are rated on the airbus. I heard they'd be on 12 days flying a month.

NSF: "You cannot have a few guys being offered a whole winter contract and the rest just picking up a few scraps on an ad-hoc basis".

Why not?

What is going to happen if that is indeed what is done?

well, 12 days times 210 GBPs a days is about what I wrote.
flexi crew contract is a ryanairisation: unexperienced and cheap cadets, with no union, and maybe floating bases.

ctc is a mafia.

Not all Airbus CTC FlexiCrew cadets are being kept on during the winter.

windcheck - just to clarify then, no one has actually been offered the contract you alluded to earlier on. The contract on offer is £210/day + allowances. There are no guaranteed monthly payouts in terms of days worked, and right now this is not a contract that goes through the winter.

JW411 - I think you have your answer. The contract suggested does not exist in the form that it has been presented. That is not to say it won't - but right now that is not the case.

The whole thing is a disgrace and cheapens the profession.

Actually shouldn't that be "overcrewed". I would venture that when they use the word overcrewed it's spin, bordering on outright bullsh it.

What is BALPA's stance on this? Particularly the easy CC? The use of cadets with virtually zero job security not only cheapens the profession, but adds a further hole to the Swiss cheese.

The commercial advantages to the company of having a flexible crewing system are clear, but what price safety? The pressures placed upon an individual operating to a flexible contract are large, especially as it sounds as if they're having to operate outside of the standard easyJet scheduling agreement/employment contract policies.

Furthermore, there is the wider impact on industry-wide T&Cs. I hope that the easyJet CC/BALPA HQ are taking a robust, and well supported, stance on this.

You're right, it's not good for the profession at all and nobody likes it one bit, apart from the company management. The problem is that when the guys involved signed up to the course they did so in good faith and before the economy fell through the floor, when recruitment was in full swing. It was a good investment at the time. You can't blame them for taking what's on offer right now, there is no other option.

The airline have not attempted to hide the fact that they wish to significantly reduce crew costs, in part through the use of contractors. As I see it, the arrangement with CTC will probably eventually end up more or less mirroring the Ryanair/Brookfield arrangement. Yes, it is effectively 'Ryanairisation', and it's spreading like a cancer. You can bet your bottom dollar that anyone taking redundancy from EMA or any of the other downsizing bases won't be replaced by permanent crew.

What I'm more interested in is what BALPA are doing about it - the obvious answer at the moment is 'nothing very quickly'. FlexiCrew F/Os do not have BALPA representation in either easyJet or CTC. BALPA have claimed they are putting together a strategy and policy on this subject, but that was months ago and nothing has been heard since. I know these things take time, but surely this has to be a priority now. With no representation or support, the guys involved have nowhere to turn, no other jobs within sight and have to take what's offered.

They weren't massively interested last year when the first cadets were dropped without being given the contracts they had been told they would be given, and even now they seem extremely slow to catch up. What they can do exactly, I don't know, but then I'm not an employment law expert and doing nothing isn't really an option.

NSF

so now seasonal commands are a 'given'?

we (BALPA members) had a ballot - we voted 'NO' so why is this the way ahead?

:=

Tiger Moth,
You're right, the whole thing is a disgrase and cheapens the proffesion.
Zippy,
You're right, you can't blame them for taking what's on offer right know.
The same way that you can't blame the girls in Cuba for having sex with
older men in exchange for other things.
And why are easyJet captains allowing it? I guess they are afraid of doing
something. They are looking other the way and only care about themselves.
They don't care about the proffesion and other pilots that come behind.

Trend or commonplace from now on?
 

EZY mgt are not interested - it's cheaper aircrew, better profits.

BALPA are not interested - they have no clout with training organisations.

CTC are happy if they can place a few of their cadets - they don't mind which ones. Indeed they will try to prevent cadets joining other airlines......

Same as mid 2008 when BALPA were approached regarding CTC/EZY relationship - strange treatment of cadets and TRSS pilot entries. Nothing done and sorry chaps/chapesses we can't help you.

So what exactly is CTCs part in all this? They have an agreement with Easyjet among others to provide trainees. Easyjet take them and offer them very little because commiting would mean transferance of the bond. It sounds like you are saying that CTC are engineering something out of this. What? Do CTC still offer the same training contract to the one they used to offer? Are CTC really trying to become the next Brookfield? Does that mean trainees can also reclaim VAT on the cost of TR and line training like Ryanair pilots apparently can? Ultimately they are paying for it after all either via reduced salary or the cost of the initial training.

Hi TheBeak,

No change to the contract - CTC training contract includes 6 months line experience with an airline - AFAIK this hasn't changed for the guys who are just starting the course now.

Trainees can't (or don't need to) reclaim the cost of VAT on the type rating because the type rating is not paid for in contracted terms - it is part of the sponsorship contract which covers the 6 months line training.

Would be lovely to have the VAT back... more worried about getting the type rating first though :}

Cheers
AD

I think you blame the wrong people. It's never been the employees responsablity, do not reverse the process. EZY decided it by itself.
CTC and EZY have an agreement to provide the airline with pilots until the summer 2011 (at least), the terms were originally very attractive I agree.
But, some of you may have realised that our world as we know it almost collapsed 12 months ago and that we are in a recession whatever the newspaper try to let us know with their daily bu:mad:it.
what did you guys expected from a LOW COST airline????????????????????? To carry on with its lovely scheme offering full time employment to people it doesn't need?? Come on, stop dreaming! They just found the perfect deal and CTC simply wanted to save its business when accepting those pour T&Cs for its cadets.

Now, you can say whatever you want, this way of exploiting young unexperienced people to increase profits is surely disgraceful but If one doesn't take this job, someone will. That's our world guys, everyone for himself, that's what everyone here does every day.
I hope that when thing will be a bit better, within few years, pilots at EZY will be better treated. I hope and that's all I can do because if after my training with CTC I have to accept the flexi crew deal I won't hesitate.