Run in - When someone reponds to what you have written by telling you to go away and calling you a moron?

No attempt to respond to any points in my post just some name calling.

That level of intelligence is likely to vote for a pay cut as well.

Anywho, there is nothing to stop the company rostering you 6/3/6/3 for the rest of your life. Net gain = ZERO

Flybe have just made their biggest profit EVER. Your pay rise, if it's accepted, is pathetic and relative to the cost of living isn't a rise. Net gain = ZERO

I can remember 3 years worth of pay rises in the last decade. If this offer is accepted it will be 6 years worth in 13 years. How much has the cost of living gone up in the same period? More than the "pay rises". Net gain = BIG LOSS.

Remember JF had 28.5% on over £500,000.
How much did Strong get?
Middle management? 9% was it? In one year.
Management bonuses no longer linked to financial performance, they just get them now regardless.

What are you negotiating for exactly?
What are you now voting for?

If this offer is accepted, from JF's perspective it's end game. From his perspective you lot are not even strong enough to negotiate an RPI plus pay RISE and a vast, necessary, improvement in scheduling/Ts&Cs.

You will have accepted a mediocre, at best, offer after 18 months of negotiating.

That is all you will ever get from now on.

How easily it seems everyone has rolled over to let JF and his boy tickle your tums. The directors and managers must be laughing their heads off right now. Minimal cost to avoid IA, they're still on track to make massive bonuses (read the accounts to see just how much), and you lot are voting yes to what amounts to a real terms 0.5% pay rise.

What's that in your pocket every month? Less than £10 for most FOs. Oh, and a vague promise to stand you down from standby. Maybe. If you're lucky. How many crews have bitched over the last umpteen pages about how hard they work, with no standby duties left uncalled? Really think it's going to get better?

Mugs.

It's a big fat NO from me. SFO is a farce good luck getting a sim slot. 2012/13 is still capped. It's a joke.

Balpa and JF have chewed you up and spat you out in bubbles. Sooner I leave this excuse for an airline the better. The only ones left will be the naive and those not good enough.

Bye.

Lord Spandex Masher it is so easy to prevaricate on the fortunes of others and pronounce on a deal that you're not involved with. I do not comment on the T’s & C’s of other airlines, partly because I don’t know the details, and partly because I’m not interested. This is a public forum so you can have your say, but for me it is entirely invalid comment if you don’t have to suffer the consequences of the decision, hence my (ok, agreed, rather blunt) suggestion that you keep quiet. It’s a shame that we don’t make more use of the Flybe private forum for these discussions!

To everyone who this matters to, I say this is a transition from a bit player in the “toy” airline market to a serious contender in Europe, things won’t be perfect immediately (if ever) but every airline has taken lots of little steps to get where they are, going for more at this stage (in my humble opinion) is loading the gun and pointing it at your foot!

What was it you said about petulant name calling?

Oh, and by the way, not that it’s relevant at all, but “PPRuNe Knight in Shining Armour” was bestowed on me but a fellow PPRuNer for a (perceived) act of gallantry back in May 2000 at the “AshBash”, you know, the year 2000 when there were people on PPRuNe who had positive things to say and were helpful!!!

Well I am interested in Flybe, it was my first airline job and I do have a bit of a soft spot for it. That and the many friends I have who still work there.

Plus I've never precluded a return to the fold, as it were, so my interest, both personal and professional, does matter. If you don't like it then hard cheese.

So you go ahead and accept the first real offer that has been tabled and prepare yourself for years more ineffective negotiations with little or no improvement to your current deal. You are now where you should have been 18 months ago and this should have been the starting point for these ongoing negotiations. You keep subsidising ticket prices and JF's supercars and his million pound apartment in Knightsbridge and management's interest free loans.

Or you could keep the pressure on the airline that, from the middle of a recession, has made the most money in one year that it ever has. You know that they can afford more than they have offered. They wouldn't have offered it otherwise would they?

"Things" should have been perfect years ago! The little steps you mention should have been happening for the last 20 years but you (Balpa/the pilot group) have allowed them to stagnate and now you're trying to play catch up against a pilot hating CEO who has zero interest in what you can afford in your limited time off.

If this offer is accepted then good luck in ever getting anything worthwhile.

Yeah, well you started it. Just responding in kind.

LSM.

You have to admit, it's easy for you to come in here preaching what we should or shouldn't do, that's also easy for someone like you who is probably sat pretty on his fat wallet salary with a bigger airline. What exactly did you achieve when you were here last? Alot of us have only inherited the legacy you left behind. You're on your high horse about it all, but what exactly did you do to improve things? It's all very easy to preach now you've left hey? :=

CC, fair comments. When I say the "pilot group allowed...etc" I do count myself in that number when I was at Flybe.

Balpa has only been recognised at Flybe for what, 5 years or so. It should have been sooner and the pressure applied to management should have been bigger. As it was that kind of pressure never existed until recently, I'm pretty certain that it would have been quashed swiftly without Balpa.

So we are all at fault.

I'm not on my high horse about it, I just want a better dealf for you, my friends and my ex-colleagues. Don't worry though, my attitude to Flybe's management is the same as the one I currently display to my present employer.

You do have to ask yourself though how did those pilots at other airlines get a better deal than Flybe? Pressure, that's all and that's all I'm suggesting to you now.

I made a comment round about Page 38 about this sorry saga.

I am glad that you all find this a wonderful offer from management.

I call it pathetic and if you agree to this, your future does not look good.

Well done management, you have won again and you will be able to take another huge increase in your package later in the year when the dust has settled.

Out of interest JW411, which part of the offer do you find the worst , scheduling or the pay side ?

Regards P

I do apologies. I was the union man for a long time including the Teamsters.

I just felt that you have all rolled over on your backs and accepted the first offer that came up from management.

In my opinion, you should have rejected this offer. You may live to regret it.

Today's flybe newsletter sums this company up quite nicely. It's the most unprofessional, pathetic and tacky thing I have ever seen.

AirHart, thank you, I couldn't have said it better.

Please just take some time to reflect on this post, concentrate on the word 'Greed'.

Always wondered why we got those self-congratulatory newsletters, who exactly is it aimed at? You're right HT, that reads more like a press release, the tacky picture I think you're referring to is from Anna Aero's website though, so you can't blame somebody's photoshopping skills down at the Death Star :E

Airhart, I don't know how many times you need to hear it but Flybe have just made their largest profit ever. It won't disappear if you get a pay "rise" rather than a pay "stay the same relatively".

Maybe the management will have to take smaller bonuses. Bonuses that they will get regardless of their performance. That's just changed by the way, did you notice it?

Look at it from JF's seat. He'll drag things out as long as necessary and then magically you get an offer of a pay rise of almost what Balpa asked for to start with. He will expect, and you are proving him right, that most of you will think that he's been pushed into a corner and had to back down. He hasn't. He's played you all like a two bit piccolo and if you accept this offer he'll be laughing all the way to the bank with his huge bonus that he didn't have to do anything for in his R8 that he can afford because the rest of the workforce are so cheap.

If you accept this measly offer of no pay rise what makes you think that you can ever get anything better out of Flybe? You're going to go on strike again are you? Like you did last time...no wait, you didn't. You accepted a crappy offer so that's what you'll get again.

Its a much better worded deal! Im sure a PR expert has done it! But the money is still short! The scheduling is nice and fluffy but come on look at the wording! Look at it in real terms you know how crewing will see it! JSMC one member from each side but if a dispute occurs GM decides do you really believe the sword will fall on the company side?

Sorry the trust has gone! If this had been the first offer I think it would have gone through, but now I see it still as a NO!

Airhart, nope, I wrote that before I had seen the latest financial report. I also made that comment, if I recall correctly, in response to another comment along the lines of "you knew what the deal was so tough, you shouldn't expect anything else". I knew what the deal was when I joined, so did everybody else but do you think that we should never get a pay rise or improvement in lifestyle?

I don't. I expect an improvement in lifestyle the longer I work. I do not expect to be earning the same, relatively, in 30 years time as I do know. If you're happy with that, fine.

RPI rises should be the absolute minimum, every year. They should not be the final result after 18 months of negotiation. Especially following a record profit in a recession.

That profit was possibly partly because you and I did not have a pay rise for a number of years. The management benefited from it, the company benefited from it so why shouldn't we?

Come on, get a grip.

For those who stil believe that this is the best deal the company can afford, go to the Flybe website, click on the 'Investors' link, read the accounts and tot up just how much money the board are prepared to set aside to pay bonuses of 100% of salary plus extras to all the directors. I make that considerably more money than they have claimed it is costing to fund the measly 'improvements' to your Ts & Cs. Read JF's statements regarding the 'strong' position of the company's finances and trading, and the obvious optimism over the future. No hint there that we are only just scraping a living and teeter on the brink of financial oblivion.

If this pathetic deal is accepted, then it just shows that the pervious 50 something pages of threats, posturing, big, brave words and name calling is only so much hot air. All mouth and no trousers, just as the management knew you all would be. That's why you've got nowhere with these negotiations. The £3 grand for SFOs is only the £3 grand they stole from you all 5 years ago to stop the last big threat to the company, so in effect, not really a pay rise at all.

Anyone who thinks that in 2 years time a massively improved offer will materialise id frankly delusional. You've been had by the board, and this was with a strong bargaining position. In 2 years I doubt they will give you the time of day. They will hardly hear you for all the laughing on the way to the bank.

This is a golden opportunity to actually drive home a deal that makes a difference - i.e; a substantial move towards a more competitive pay deal and a SA that is much closer to the Blue Sky agreement. No more of this fannying about with a few more hours off here and there, and a possibility of the odd standby being dropped for a SDD.

Watching from outside, you guys need to stop sell yourselves short and learn from your colleagues at Virgin.

Has French offered you the deal you wanted - to the letter?

If the answer is 'no', refuse the offer. This agreement suits nobody else but French and his managers who you all seem to despise so much.

The reason he has made this offer is because it suits him; it's as easy as that. Your company can afford to settle this and meet every demand you made but it appears that all French has had to do is wave a bit of money under the noses of a few and sound amenable on the SA; some of you think its Xmas.

There has been much bravado about strike action and that is what you should still be holding over French to get exactly what you want. If you give up on this, then all crediblity and any future negotiation with management will be laughed out of court.

Don't capitulate now. Have you noticed that Virgin settled on the back of planned strike action?

It's a No from me...

The pay is a step in the right direction, although some ex Connect may not be doing as well out of it. But the scheduling is a none starter for me. Nope it's just more of the same.

If the company genuinely did care, they would have made an offer above what we had asked for. 108 days off and no Royal bank holidays says it all really.

And who on earth thinks flying after the sim is a good idea?

Fancier version of the last two offers! Does anyone believe you will get an SDD? How many times have you been on AS everything in the air and told to call back in half hour???

NO!

They´ve offered what BALPA has asked for except the 64 hours, which instead is 60. The rest is what BALPA wanted, and that´s the reason why it is backed by the whole CC.

So what else do you want?

Actually it isn't, BALPA asked for 6.1% for year 1. We haven't got that. We also asked for the Blue Skies Agreement, we haven't got that either.

Actually, on the SA BALPA asked for the long 2 day weekend plus 24 hrs for every additional day thereafter. You don't have it. Anything longer than 2 days off and you still get stuffed with lates to earlies. 6/3 6/3 6/3 - totally legal and satisfies the minimum monthly days off requirement too. I hope you all enjoy it.

Nor have they delivered the significant closure with the rest of the industry with regard to pay that BALPA claim in their recent letter, because they have added holiday pay into the issue. Looks like it's not only the board that produce complete BS when it suits them.

Yes for me

'I do honestly believe we are worth so much more'............then damned well stand up to them and get what you feel you are worth.

If you saw this through you wouldn't have to keep 'chipping away'.

Get the cake baked, with all the ingredients, this time around according to YOUR recipe, not what French feels he'll deign to concede to you, and from the next negotiation you put the icing on the cake.

Accept this and you'll be forever eating the crumbs management feed you.

It has to be a no. It's still too far from the original BALPA request, and how long ago was that? Don't be worn down, don't be disillusioned, the company has the money, demand to be treated properly. 2% for FY10/11 is an awful long way from 6.1%. Scheduling is still off. It must be better.

£3000 for SFOs is a bit left field. The board are wise to who are the most frustrated and angry. That £3000 should have been there all along, but demands for skippers will increase, and how will that taxed £3000 affect you long term? You might not be off to BA/BMI/QR/EK next year, go for a proper rise for all.

Tied into the agreement for 5 years, seems not to get mentioned very much recently but it's still there. So no more than 108 days off and no more than 60 hours for a weekend until at leaset March 2016. But don't forget Jim really really cares!

did'nt we already reject this

For the FOs considering the £3k.

What are the conditions of your deal? Where are the details before you all vote 'yes'?

Is it payable to current SFOs, or only new SFOs? When does it come into force?

Once you pass a PCA, how long is it valid for? Does your £3k depend on the PCA remaining valid?

Once you eventually make it to the LHS, does the deal for skippers look half as good as it does for SFOs?

Say 'yes' now, and you shaft yourself 12-18 months down the line.

Yet another nudge in the right direction, but management give very little;

-Still limited to 108 days off!
-Stood down from stby the day before, right, how often are you left hanging on astby when nothing is there? All down to crewings good will
-SFO will become a rare position, as the industry moves people will move through FO to captain in a shorter time than the previous static years. Bet you don't even collect the full years 3 grand!
-why to be a SFO do you need to pass command selection, every other major carrier requires unfrozen atpl plus 500 on type!!
-still 4 hours disruptionto get a payment when cabin crew bought this down to 2 hrs in their negotiating.
-how about €10 per sector like Finncomm who Flybe have just purchased instead of £1.90 perhour??

A few steps forward but much basic stuff left undone, a lot depending on the companies good will. As people move on and the industry picks up over the next couple of years, how much goodwill willyou see from management. How much so far??

Openings at a certain smiley blue UK charter outift expected soon !

While I'm not entirely happy with the current deal put to us, I am of the belief that this is better than the last offer. At this stage of the negotiations, given the time taken to get to where we are today and my concern that if we get another "no" vote, there's going to be a struggle to maintain momentum and push for further improvements.

I think we should cash in our chips at this point. Accept what we've been offered and take stock of how far forward we have moved.

Yes, we should have more days off, yes we should have got our Royal Bank Holiday.

But there is a substantial pay offer on the table, there is an improvement to our existing SA.

Let's go for it - and let the Joint Scheduling Committee address the niggly issues which will no doubt surface in the future.

When the next bank holiday appears we can stand firm - and demand recognition.

It's a yes from me.

Or say no, ballot for IA and watch how quickly they offer a better deal?

my gut feeling is that we might end up cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we vote no this time round.

The individual costs of going on strike may well outweigh any financial benefits in any existing (or improved) offer.

What I'm suggesting is that a 2 day or 3 day strike will go some way to wiping out a large portion of our back pay.

It might hurt us more than them and possibly for very little "extra".

We're never going to close our pay gap in one major negotiation, nor are we going to get the best SA. But the CC have done a good job here and made some significant progress.

No, of course not. That would suggest the only reason I would vote yes is because I want a decent pay packet in August. My yes reasons are a bit more involved than just that.

I don't think we would achieve much more by agreeing strike action.

I do think we've got a better deal than the first time round.

And yes, while I'm not completely and utterley delighted with every aspect of the SA, I am happier with it than our current one, and I think I will see an improvement in quality of life.

Would I want more? Of course.

But I'm satisfied that after 18 months of negotiations this is where we've reached.

I'm happy to see this deal go through. Then after some R&R back to the round table to start the next set of negotiations.

IA does not have to be a strike.

Its not 60 hours min, its 56 hours min. The 60 hour protection only applies to extra sectors added to you on the day! If your tech delayed, wx delayed, slot delayed, just plain late cos the schedule is to tight or anything else min hours off can ( AND YOU BETTER BELIEVE WILL ) be reduced to 56.

Its not even a substantive pay rise, its 2% year 1 + inflation plus 0.5% year 2 then inflation plus for year 3 but capped soo low its going to end up being a real terms pay cut in the final year.

Do you really think this is the best they could do? Just look at what the directors and non exec directors are giving themselves in the full year accounts and ask yourself again?

Lets take stock of just how far forward you've come then.

1. Ummmm,
2. Errrrrrrrrrrr,
3. A pay rise that isn't,
4. A pay rise that is less than Balpa originally asked for,
5. No extra bank holidays, unlike the rest of the company.
6. What else?

If you're satisfied with that after a year and a half of negotiations what on earth will you be happy with after 6 months or a year, or however long the next lot takes?!

Wanna bet?

JF will not want you to strike, or even any less aggressive forms of IA. You will get a better offer if you keep pushing.

You deserve it. Don't sell yourselves short.

Some guys here need a serious reality check. There's this attitude by some, most likely people who've not had much experience before flying maybe, that no one should be able to be forced to work a minute longer that their scheduled day without the right to refuse, payouts etc. It's that 1970s mentality which basically ruined this country and turned the public against unions.

Secondly LSM. I know you've got the "right" to say what you want, public forum, blah blah and I know you say you used to work here but you don't now, so why the he'll is nearly all the bitter agit-prop bile coming from you? Why can't you leave us alone and worry about your own circumstances.

I was prepared to go on strike on the back of the first 2 "offers" as they were insulting. This latest one still is, but not to extent I could personally justify striking. There's a hard core on these boards who are going to say no to anything less than BAs scheduling agreement and a 30% payrise. I just hope they are a very loud minority and that this deal gets voted through.

Are the company suddenly fluffy bunnies. No. Do I trust them an inch. No. Will I still leave the very minute something else comes up. Yes. In the meantime 60-64 hours off over the weekend will be a very welcome lifestlye improvement.

All with the proviso that the proposed stitch up of the ex bacon skippers gets resolved, otherwise it's a no.

six-sixty, I don't know what agit-prop means! Anyway, it's not all coming from me, there are others who agree that this is a poor deal. Doesn't mean I have to speak like a politician though. Also my comments are generally aimed at:

- The offer
- The company

I do worry about my own circumstances, when it's necessary, but that doesn't mean I can't be interested in anything else, does it?

You're happy to vote for this deal and that's fine, nobody can stop you. You can get your minimal back pay and your extra 4 hours (which may or may not happen) then join another company. That's fine too. But please think about the other people at Flybe who can't leave (for whatever reason), or don't want to, who will be tied into the same poor scheduling agreement until 2016.

18 months of negotiations and you've achieved less than you originally asked for. Amazing. That's isn't a go at you or Balpa it's aimed at the company's brilliant delaying tactics, smoke and mirrors and ability to make it appear as if they're offering you something worthwhile.