I tend to agree with the words of our Zimbabwean friend that this thread appears to have nowhere to go. However i have enjoyed the reaction to my first post.

There are clearly several contributors to this thread that are permanent EJ flight crew (some of whom appear sympathetic to the plight of Flexicrew), but it would be very interesting to hear the regulators side of this debate. And at the same time do we have anyone from BALPA who would like to add their comments?

It would also be very intersting to hear from any of our French & German neighbours to understand how they manage to balance supply & demand without descending to the likes of a Flexicrew contract. I suspect it isn't simply employment law, and there must be a more structured relationship between Airlines, regulators and FTOs.

And finally the very valid IR35 point raised by one of my fiercest critics, Poose, ought to be pursued with some vigour. It was the abuse of the self employed status in the construction industry that was a major factor leading to the creation of IR35, and there appear to be valid parallels in the Flexicrew contract.

As an engineer, problem solving is my daily bread & butter but everyone here appears (perhaps reluctantly) to accept stalemate, status quo, call it what you will, and as such is there any point in continuing the discussion? Rants, whining, slagging off those that have no power, but at the end of the day it isn't achieving anything.

Zordon,

I sympathaize with much of what you say, and can easily see things from your perspective. However, it is important to make one distinction here. Cadets are apprentices. They have been fast tracked into a part of the industry that traditionally wouldn't (and still largely doesn't) normally host pilots with such low levels of experience. Therefore the supply & demand rewards of the labour market, should not be (but usually are) confused with those that apply to experienced first officers in these seats.

Just as in your industry, it would not be uncommon to have 25 well qualified (and short-listable) candidates for every right seat vacancy. In fact the numbers are usually much higher than that. Here I am not talking about candidates with a few hundred hours, but those with thousands of hours including medium/heavy jet transport experience. This includes applicants from domestic and foreign airlines as well as military career changers.

You cannot equate an apprenticeship in that seat with an experenced pilot in that seat, although the former will eventually become the latter. Without any cost and flexibility benefit to the airline there would be no reason to provide such apprenticeships, and the opportunities afforded by them would simply evaporate.

Whilst I am not advocating or defending flexicrew, the fact (as you acknowledge) that "the world caved in," placed a set of realities on both the FTO and Customer that ensured something was salvaged from this collapse. The option would simply have been nothing at all! Many well established FTO's lost their airline customers and in turn their respective cadet programmes. This one managed to keep the throughput alive albeit on significantly reduced T&C's to those that had existed previously. Despite this, the lack of end user demand simply caused supply to build up. Until the beginning of this year hold pools of prospective cadets were finding people swimming for up to a year or more.

As other airline cadet programmes start to come back on stream, so the scope of opportunities improves. Many easyjet cadets (or those still on flexicrew contracts,) have found opportunities with such airlines. In other words as they emerge from their apprenticeships, so the basic laws of supply and demand start to become a factor again.

Hopefully your son is able to benefit from either new opportunities, or as his apprenticeship period ends, is able to benefit from better terms & conditions where he is. Either way, the future is a lot brighter than the alternative would have been, in that he has been able to fulfill all of the early stages of his fast track apprenticeship.

That you and your wife are still having to support him, is little different from parents who also suppport their offspring through education, training and apprenticeships in many other industries and professions. Which is again why I say that is important to make the distinction.

Craggenmore,

You do not get my point, I am on the regular easyJet contract, I am NOT a contractor...... The contractors are the CTC/Parc guys that we want to help!

And....

Why do you find this so difficult to understand, despite so many people telling you. The funniest point is that you have answered your own question when you run through the list of things that have to be satisfied for a strike to be legal.

The CTC/Parc guys do not work for easyJet, they are employed by either CTC or Parc (well self-employed) and contracted to easyJet, because of this it is illegal for us easyJet employees to go on strike over their pay and conditions!

Hence why Balpa are exploring different avenues!

Hopefully you'll get it this time because I'm starting to feel like I'm :ugh:

The point that tends not to be stressed enough is that decent T&Cs for pilots (particularly debt-ridden flexi-FOs) is a matter of safety. Consider, if you will, the plight of the Parc guys who were threatened with the sack unless they accepted a financially-crippling 2-year Berlin contract. Some of the guys going are now not expecting to be able to meet even just their loan-repayments for the month - never mind earning enough to cover food/rent in Berlin. Already a few of them are organising second jobs in bars/restaurants.

Consider what WILL be happening in SXF in just a few weeks - FOs will be doing their 5am - 1pm early, heading home and changing into his/her bar uniform and working the evening shift until midnight or later. Home to bed for a couple of hours sleep and back down to the eJ crew room for 5am the following morning. Repeat.

Its a horrible thought but it seems the surest way to kill the flexi epidemic will be a hole in the ground.

Just to back up what Maz and others have said.

In the UK if your company leaves you and your cohort's (e.g. current easyjet pilots) T&Cs alone then carrying out Industrial Action (IA) in protest over another group's T&Cs, ( e.g. sub-contractors, flying for Easyjet and provided by a third party ) would be extremely ill advised.

If do proceed to IA you'll face:

1. a legal injunction,

Followed by, if you strike anyway because you think "you can do whatever you like":

2. Confiscation of Union Reps assets, confiscation of Union assets, dismissal of all employees who took part and/or organised the illegal industrial action, and no doubt a list of heaven knows what else.

BALPA found this out the hard and expensive way when BA pilots threatened to strike over the T&Cs of prospective "Open Skies" pilots a few years back.

I appreciate in some countries it's possible to strike at the drop of a hat, or at least with minimal warning, over just about anything that upsets the union membership from the colour of uniforms to management bonuses but in the UK Unions are stuck with some very draconian legislation regulating their behaviour.

Superpilot - Nobody is 'forcing' anybody. They are being offered a position which they can accept or not. Agreed it is not what most people want but they do not have to take it. In my time I had to accept jobs I did not want in order to gain the experience to get where I am today. If they don't want it there are those who do.

Disgrace that Easyjet pilots allowed contracting to happen in the first place. Can you imagine the level of industrial action employed if Boris floated the contracting model with London underground!

What an ignorant comment. :ugh:

Phensocks
 

Why is it an ignorant comment?

You allowed the sh1t on your doorstep, and you'll do mighty well not to step in it one day soon yourself.

Another ignorant comment.

Phensocks - care to elaborate on your informed, reasoned and articulate response?

Phensocks
 

But you easyJet boys and girls have allowed the sh1t on your doorstep haven't you?

You had the power to stop Flexicrew at it's inception and you didn't.

You want to consider just how soon it'll be before your shoes get dirty. I'm sure WB is laughing his socks off at your disunity.

Not really, read the previous pages, all is contained there.

Did we?

Oh please tell, please, pretty please. I'm beside myself with excitement waiting to know how we could have stopped it. Please tell me, put me out of my misery.....

I'm well aware thanks.

"Please,please,please" as James Brown said. Moderator please put us out of our misery. I don't mind reading crap as long as it is well written crap.

As we seem to have reached the u bend on the thread with more and more faecal matter being added please close and delete this thread.

Has easyjet contracted any Flexicrew Captains yet, or is it just FO?
When was the last time they offered a permanent employment contract?

:hmm:

What's wrong Zordon? No one giving you a cuddle and telling you what a travesty it is that poor Zordon junior isn't being payed 80k so that he can afford a Porsche to go with his gold bars.

Beazlebub wrote, in my opinion, a very good response. And as someone in construction you must surely see the reasoning to it. He is at the bottom of the pile in terms of experience level. Like a first day apprentice on a site. But he has sold his soul to CTC so I hope he gets used to it. I guess he is fortunate in having parents with the means to bail him out, and therein lies the problem. All the pay2fly idiots who assumed colossal debt in the blind ritual belief in CTC would in fact be on better deals if they witheld their labour from Easyjet until the package improved. Simple you say. Not so, because if the package improved guys with experience would then be attracted to these jobs in their droves, so poor Zordon jr would have to suffer the humiliation of flying an aircraft with propellors. Oh No. What would he tell the girls then?
But would it be so bad? My first job in a turboprop a few years back paid more than junior is on now. And the type was paid for, with salary from day one. And I learned how to fly all over again. I could walk into the base office and not have a good proportion of the crews looking down at me as someone who has contributed to the downfall of the T&Cs of the industry.

The whole argument that CTC moved the goalposts is fairly weak. If junior had read the small print he would have seen that nothing was guaranteed. Promised maybe, almost certainly. But then a search on here would have shown varied opinions on CTC. I have a friend who was on the second course back in 2005 when it all began and he has some bad tales. Indeed even then, it was clear the risk was all on the candidates side. And the bank, as it was unsecured then. Hence all the IVA's and bankruptcies.

Why would Balpa care. You're not, but supposing you were a Balpa member and flew Q400's for Flybe. 4000 hrs. Captain. A reasonable experience level, and one which, if Easyjet really had safety as their first priority, would be a walk in for the RHS. Would you be happy if your subs were contributing to the fund to get better pay for the guy who jumped the ladder for the job you were working towards?

Be careful what you wish for asking the regulator for help. This happened in the USA so what did they do? The raised the limit to an ATPL minimum for an airline job. A highly safety orientated move which I personally hope comes here. That would be a leveller in the market. And make people think twice before relying on the bank of mum and dad to get a CPL.

Phensocks:

Let me make this simple for you. Your colleague, Alexander de Meerkat is intimating that strike action would be supported by the likes of him, in order to see the back of Flexi contracts.

If you can strike over it now, then you could have done so at it's inception. But....

....If strike action would be illegal now, I suggest you explain to AdM the error of his understanding.

Anyhow, the next thing will likely be contract Captains, everywhere in easyJet.

Why shouldn't it be?

It is obvious. Phensocks, you admit that you couldn't stop Flexi FO's, so it would appear that Captains will be next.

An easyJet Captain may be well trained and professional, but they aren't irreplaceable. And more cheaply, which is to everyone's detriment. Except WB and the other management.

Silverknapper, the idea of making an ATPL the min requirement is an excellent idea!!!! Let's petition for this right now!

Narrow Runway, well done for your u-turn.

ADM is sadly mistaken if he thinks their is a legal basis for strike action in the UK as sadly there isn't. Therefore we are powerless to resist managements push towards flexi Captains. It is only a matter of time before it becomes a reality.

Therefore better to accept this fact and plan for it with your personal finances. The market will find a level, there are sadly many unemployed pilots and that level won't be in the workers favour in the UK.

We couldn't stop Flexi FO's and legally we can't stop Flexi Captains. End.

PS I'm still waiting to know how you would stop the flexi scheme under UK legislation.