Easyjet "holding pool"
 

Hello everybody...i made a call to easyjet flight crew recruitment dept. a couple of days ago, wondering about any updates for pilots in the holding pool like me (i am swimming since early 2008)...they told me their policy has changed and holding pool no more lasts 2 years but just 1..so i am officially kicked out of it...gutted..well they said I should have received a communication about it but I didn't, and nobody I know who is in the holding pool did...so have I been fooled? What the hell is going on? Anybody knows?
All this is just ridiculous anyway...
Cheers
GDS

In the pool since july 2008,received only email about 2 years deadline to be considered.....so far no news from easy about this change...
ciao
H

I haven't heard that either, had an update email from them today, basically no change forseeable. I've not been told that it is now 1 year not 2, but who knows....:confused:

Even if it is 2 years, nothing will happen by then - you only have to look at what the company is doing right now - base closures and reductions. The company is slowing down growth rates which ultimately means all Captain promotions will (should) come from within and any FO positions are done on a part time basis via CTC. It sucks I know, but that's how the company is playing ball for the forseeable . . . .

Akrapovic - that is not really the whole picture, or indeed the any part of the picture about what is happening at easyJet. I am an easyJet Training Captain based in Gatwick and although I am not a manager I have a reasonable picture of what is happening within the company.

The headline news is this:

1. Although not yet stated officially, we have had a great summer and are almost certainly about to announce a profit for the whole year - something that only Ryanair in the UK and only a handful of airlines in the western world will acheive this year.
2. Our share price is on the rise compared to where it has been this last year.
3. UK regional bases are under threat of closure or reduction. East Midlands which only had 3 aircraft at it is the only one to announce a closure - all aircraft will be deployed elsewhere and all pilots and cabin crew will be offered jobs elsewhere.
4. Larger bases like Gatwick and a number of European bases are likely to expand significantly over the next year.
5. Despite the difficult situation at the UK regional bases, the overall picture is one of fleet increase over the coming few years and we are constantly receiving brand new Airbuses from the factory.
6. There will be demand for pilots at easyJet for years to come.
7. Right now there is not a company in the world that I know of that is more secure for pilots on permanent contracts. We have as safe a job as exists right now - I for one am extremely grateful for that situation.
8. We fly a fleet of nearly new aircraft - it is not unommon the find yourself flying a brand new Airbus in its first week out of the factory.
9. Despite the numerous attempts by our managers to ruin things, easyJet is still a great place to work, and most people really enjoy it.
10. If you are fortunate to work at places like Gatwick, the range of destinations is enormous - I have worked here over 5 years and I still have not been to all our destinations.
11. The 5/3/5/4 rostering pattern is a huge benefit and you can plan your life over a year ahead to know when you are off.
12. The people are great - I work every day with pleasant, courteous and professional people who really want to do a great job. That is difficult to quantify financially, but in terms of the enjoyment of your day it is just priceless.

Alas, it is not really good news for those in the holding pool. My own view, and I think this will be verified by anyone in the know at easyJet, is that the holding pool is effectively defunct. The whole way easyJet conducts its recruitment has come under intense scrutiny and the traditional forms of recruitment are basically gone. It is stating the obvious, but for the infinite foreseeable future I cannot envisage any circumstances under which we will recruit Direct Entry Captains (DECs) again. For the next few years, and maybe beyond, all future First Officers will be recruited from cheap low-houred guys/gals who will be recruited through CTC. These will be young folk who have huge burdens of aviation debt who are desperate for hours and will take virtually any deal on offer. They will be employed in the summer months only on temporary contracts. Until that supply dries up, and that may be many years from now, that is likely to be the only way into easyJet I can imagine. Forget the old days of wanting experience on turboprops, or better still jets - those days are long gone. All that counts now is a type-rating and a couple of hundred hours total time. We can basically get our supply of pilots for the summer from this source.

Where do the captains come from you might ask? The answer is that they will all come from within and from 2 basic contracts. One will be permanent but hours limited promotions from within. They will be FOs (we have around 250-300 suitably qualified FOs awaiting promotion right now - cannot give you the exact figure but around those numbers) who get their turn. They will be offered full time for 6 months in the summer and 25% in the winter (contract known as PPY75 - pemanent part year 75%). The others will come from temporary promotions from our own FOs who will get summer commands only.

There are an enormous range of 'economy' measures in place. These vary from the recruitment policy above to the attacking of Training Captain salaries. All Training Dept promotions were cancelled for the winter - anyone waiting a TRI/TRE upgrade was unceremoniously binned off their planned courses a few weeks ago. There is an ongoing discussion about how to handle the 'surplus' of Line Training Captains - almost certainly the end result will be no redundancies but a reduced training contract with reduced money.

Love it or hate it, that is the future as I believe it to be at easyJet. If you are swimming in the Holding Pool, my best advice would be to make alternative plans very quickly. I genuinely believe there is little or no possibility any time in the next few years when you will be offered a permanent job at easyJet. Please do not shoot the messenger - I am not justifying this situation in any way, but merely reporting it as it is. Some of my colleagues may care to contribute with their take on the situation, but I would need some persuading that the view I have given is not correct. Best of luck to one and all.

NSF,

I hope you are well and agree with you about EZY but you are not correct when comparing EZY's profit to Ryanair's annual report.

In fact Ryanair's annual report goes from from March to March and therefore a bit offset to easyJet but they still came out with a big loss according to their latest report released this summer.

Ryanair reports first annual loss in 2008/2009 - Monsters and Critics

Next year will be a different matter.............

TFCM



Ps. As of August -09 189 FO's on the waiting list for command.

NSF - point of order - I said:

and you said:

and also, I said:

and you stated:

Therefore how can your statement make any sense??!!

I appreciate you're certainly more in the know than most regarding comments regarding easyJet, but I'd appreciate it if you read others' comments before shooting them down in flames!

the company is actually short in the RHS but due to a somewhat misguided embargo by the AMB there is no recruitment. If there was it would not necessarily help the hold pool out because there are plenty of cadets who have already worked 6 months in the company facing the boot this month.
Easyjet is an ok place to be at present but that is despite the current management not because of them. Sad but true.
If I were swimming in the orange pool I would consider looking for alternatives opportunities.

Thanks Norman for an informative post. Indeed I pretty much gave up any thoughts of getting into Ezy quite a while ago unfortunately, although officially still in the pool, but that is the reality of life at the moment I'm afraid.

Which had me wondering, where do guys like myself go in the forseeable. Quite a few years now on heavy TPs, a few thousand hours, and I cannot for the life of me see how guys in the same situation will ever move into jet airlines anymore, not just Ezy, but generally. As you say, I think the days of the old traditional routes of cutting one's teeth in maybe light twins, then heavy TPs, then moving into the jet world (should one want to of course, not everyone does I understand that) are long gone, and sadly for the industry, will not be returning, certainly in the numbers we used to see anyway.

I know this is an aside to the topic of the Ezy hold pool, but I'm just interested in other guys' views on this, particularly those of you in a similar boat, good hours on TPs, a few years now under your belt, where do we go from here???

The Flying Cokeman - thanks for that. The 189 figure in August is probably more correct than my 250-300. There are also some guys currently acting as captain who are about to be returned to the gene pool (about 10 I believe). Obviously each month that goes by, particularly during the summer when people are flying a lot, produces more and more qualified FOs. The exact figure changes but we can safely say it is going up all the time. Also, I agree about Ryanair - their figures March to March were indeed a loss. For better or worse from easyJet's perspective, Ryanair are forecasting a massive profit for the coming year covering this summer that has just finished and ending in March 2010. I am not really sure how that comes about as fundamentally their business model is not changing, but that is nonetheless what they are saying.

Akrapovic - my comments to you were specifically about base closures and reductions. There is one base closure (EMA which has 3 aircraft out of a total fleet of 165-ish) and the reductions in Luton etc are going to be significantly offset by expansions elsewhere. Love them or hate them, our management have decided that these aircraft can make way more money in continental Europe than they can in the UK. If you are one of those getting compulsory resettlement from the UK to elsewhere then clearly that is very unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, in terms of the questions being asked here 'base closures and reductions' suggest a reduction in easyJet's overall fleet, when in fact the exact opposite is happening. We are still expanding, albeit at a less aggressive rate than was originally planned.

As others have pointed out, there is indeed a shortage of FOs right now within easyJet - that is likely to increase rather than decrease due to the ending of summer contracts. Some work is rumoured to be being offered to some of the cadets over the winter but I have not yet met anyone who has been formally offered that deal. There are no doubt big bonuses to be made for the managers who balance the figures correctly. As our previous Director of Flight Operations discovered, there are also some very quick ways out of the company for those that get the figures wrong and force us into cancelling flights. I wait with interest to see where the dice falls in the coming weeks.

NSF

If someone from CTC spent 6 months with you to be laid off, are you sure that they would be called back before those at CTC who are waiting for line training. There must be nearly 150+ at CTC who are waiting for type ratings and line training? What would be cheaper for easyJet, calling back those who have done a 6 months stint already or new cadets wanting 6 months of line training?

You're assuming that CTC's contract with Easyjet has been renewed. In any case i believe they are all the same price to Easyjet

As far as I understand, that's definitely happening. I know people who have been offered a certain number of days per month flying for easyJet over the winter on this basis. These will be on CTC FlexiCrew terms (i.e. not a new intake of fresh cadets on the 6-month probation £1k/month contract.).

(i.e. not a new intake of fresh cadets on the 6-month probation £1k/month contract.).

:hmm: Are you serious 1k a month ? I realise these guys and gals are straight out of flight school but 1k a month to fly an Airbus for a major U.K airline is an absolute disgrace, even as a six month "probationary wage". Ten years ago I used to get paid 1.2K a month working five days part time in Tesco. No wonder Easy jet are hoovering up as many CTC graduates as possible its costing them absolute peanuts.

I don't mean to sound like im having a go, I know everyone is just trying to catch a break and I think it is great that there a chance to go into an airline straight out of training but this has got to stop, where on earth is people's self respect? Where are we going to be ten years on with this going on? I could maybe justify it if there was a permanent contract at the end, pending satisfactory performance of course but this is just pure taking advantage.

I think any company worth working for recognises the value of it employees and doesn't mess around, either you employ people on a permanent contract and pay them a proper salary commensurate with their qualifications or you do whats going on here and you just create bad feeling and de-motivation and how on earth the guys that have been with the company a long time feel about this I don't know but shame on you for allowing this to even be thought about by the company, it should have been put to bed and never seen again the moment it was mentioned by management.

I guess thats the world today it's "im alright jack" nobody gives a toss about anybody else as long as they still get their slice of the pie.

Just my two cents......

AVIATOR1982 - do some research on the CTC Cadet scheme and you'll see how the £1k/month thing works, and whether it is right or wrong isn't the issue here. This isn't the thread for it - too many have been drawn off track on the same old debate.

AVIATOR1982 - spot on.

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds very unsafe? Inexperienced FOs flying for a few days per month over the winter. Temporary, low-houred pilots over the summer. Ezy may some things going for it, contract pilots certainly ain't one of them.

Regards safety I don't have an issue, Easyjet obviously have their check and training process and every pilot is required to meet those standards, if they didn't then the CAA would not allow them to operate.

CTC cadets who were at ezy last summer will all be offered a flexi crew contract at easyjet this winter starting in November 2009 at bases like Lyon, Belfast, Rome, Milan, Paris.

Easyjet and Ryanair only take on Cadets because it's cheap :D

Not all of them. Some are without work over the winter.

Belfast!?!?!? I thought they were one of the bases supposedly over crewed and had been told that pilots might have to be relocated?

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.