I think Pit Bull has hit the nail on the head with the companys current plans to tour RJ crews through the regions. Given their statement that there are no roles for BA pilots in the new BACE RJ operation, I think they'd do their level best to avoid paying relocation for a move north only to have to pay it again two years later for a southbound move.

Squirrel - BACE do operate 146s with 100+ seats and I don't suppose any scope agreement would require them to surrender those, it's just that they wouldn't be able to buy any more 100+ seat aircraft. 99 seats fine, 101 seats not fine. After all, whats to stop management handing over the 737-500s or A318s next? Under current management all BA jobs are going to be at LGW/LHR because there won't be any regional bases. That won't prevent the company trying to tour you through the regions though. I wouldn't get too hung up with your suspiscion that people think you're going to be jumping the seniority list at LHR in some way. Junior people have been joining long haul fleets for donkeys years and its just accepted because type freezes or insufficient hours prevent more senior people moving. If you wish to go long haul with low seniority then your situation is no different to that of a DEP and I'm certainly not envious of it.

I can fully sympathise with your predicament CPB. City Flyer pilots are the latest in a long line to have their family lives severely disrupted by BA mismanagements feeble attempts to cut costs.

In reality few if any of these attempts have actually saved them anything. In most cases, if not all, the disruption caused to those involved has only added to BAs overall costs. I am thinking here of what happened to Highland Division, then later to the Scottish mainline base, and finally to Manchester and Birmingham.

In the case of Manchester and Birmingham I understand that a good business case was put forward for these bases to continue, but those making the decision chose to ignore it because they "had a feeling" that closure was best.

I wonder if they realise the cost of having disgruntled pilots? I very much doubt it.

I don't think anyone in BACX is saying that we are paid peanuts and proud of it, or at least they shouldn't.

Quite a few people on this thread are talking about divide and conquer. Surely the non-involvement by BA BALPA with BACX BALPA in scope discussions is fuelling this problem. It won't go away either. What of any future regional aircraft? The Embraer 170/190 will go from 70 seats up to 110+. This lack of communication between the two pilot groups plays into BA management's hands and helps neither group.

SCOPE is not protectionism
 

This whole subject is one very close to my heart and I was initially a little disappointed that I have stumbled across it so late in the day. What I can say is that Hand Solo has voiced quite coherently the issue of how much 'fudging' goes on in this wonderful company that is BA, I take my hat off to you.

The whole SCOPE issue may be shrouded in rhetoric by BALPA regarding the number of seats (100+) and the theft of 'our routes', but fundamentally what all this boils down to is pilot shortages.

When (and if) the day ever arrived, where BA were finding it a little tricky to attract new pilots into its ranks as quick as they were retiring, then that would be the day when BALPA would have the ultimate law of supply and demand on their side.

300 or so senior Captains retired in the financial year just gone. A year ago BA faced a severe shortage of pilots and elected to buy CFE. One of the unspoken advantages of such a purchase was the inheritance of a large community of pilots that would ease the looming crisis of pilot shortages. The BACE/BAR transfer (and as a complication the insult that Ex-CFE crews are to help wind it down) is another short term fix for the pilot shortage.

I hope you all see my point. If the pilot shortages were to have occurred more markedly due to a comprehensive SCOPE agreement, then BA would have had to make its DEP rates more attractive to those that were needed to replace the bulge of retirees. With a large exodus of labour from so called 'feeder airlines' to BA, to plug this gap the 'feeders' would have had to consequently raise their rates to retain their pilots. WE WOULD ALL WIN.

So to all BALPA members, whether you are in Big Airways or outside, remember the favourite phrase of my superiors
"We pay you market rate why are you complaining?"

Let's all work together to make this 'market rate' a better one.

Secret Squirrel, regarding your comment Many of us in BA unlike yourself I might add went through a system that we call selection. As an ex-cadet and having gone through this I find your comment somewhat insulting. I don't begrudge you being a part of BA it was not your choice, but to then insult those who got in the HARD way without the luxury of bypassing a very tough selection procedure is not on. You won't do yourself or your colleagues any favors with that attitude. If I was in your situation I'd be laughing all the way to the bank. I hope everything works out for you all, but equally I don't wish to see more senior pilots disadvantaged in the process.

I wonder how many times I have read on this forum:

'I wouldn't work for BA if you paid me'

Funny how times change :)

HomerJ,

I find your attitude somewhat disagreeable. Specifically, this issue of the selection process and that somehow the ex-CFE community can not really consider itself as being 'proper' BA pilots due to not having done it.

Just take a step back and look at it from my point of view. I'm sitting here and imagining the future. A future in which HomerJSimpson, or someone of similar viewpoint, might have an important say in my future. For example, say you become management and have to interview a selection of candidates for a training position.

Is the fact that I originated from CFE going to be held against me? Even if you don't consciously think so, the way I read your post, and several other 'proper' BA pilots over the last 2 years, your prejudice against us can be seen protruding between the lines.

Is our background going to blight the rest of our careers? Because that's what it looks like to me. And it fills me with despair. Any time anyone feels like it, they'll just reach into the closet of history and just whip out the "you didn't do the selection procedure, you're not worthy" arguement. I made this point in the various arguements last year, and sure enough here we are, 1 year later, and you're doing it.

To reiterate a point I made last year, the purpose of a selection process is to assess suitability for training. All ex CFE pilots have completed at least 1, more usually 2, and sometimes 3 type ratings in a BA approved and audited training system. I say the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Not to mention the fact that CFE had a selection process as well, which many individuals have failed. By way of a specific example, my sim partner on the ATR back in '96 failed the CFE training, but subsequently passed BA selection.

Should I consider BA cadets arriving on my fleet as being suspect because thay have not passed a CFE selection? Of course not.

I don't want to get into a Pythonesque "When I were a lad" speech, but the point is that there is no question that the CFE mob are a tried and tested group of pilots and deserve to be considered as such.

As far as SSs comments go, why not ask yourself why his bracketed point of view has given way to the unbracketed? Whats made him change?

Think about my point of view. I was quite happy based at LGW flying the RJ, on my 5 year type freeze. The lack of seniority, whilst insulting, was of little immediate practical concern because of the freeze. I wouldn't have presumed to displace someone from 'proper' BA from a seat they wanted because I didn't need to. And neither (I would think) did SS.

But if it reaches the point where its down to me or somebody from BA proper to get a choice job, then as I understand it, depending on how the surplus is declared on the shrinking RJ fleet, I may recieve preference. Should that happen, here will be my feelings:

If the displaced individual joined pre '96 (i.e. has been in the group longer) then I'll feel a measure of guilt, combined with the hope that the individual gets their desired post at the soonest opportunity.

If the displaced individual joined the BA group after me, then I'll just view it as a rightful reclamation of unfairly witheld seniority, take the job and not bat an eyelid.


All I want to do is fly LHS out of LGW. I've been doing the former for 4 years, and the latter for 6 years. I fail to see why recent joiners to the BA group via the 'proper' selection procedure, should expect to displace me. If the RJ is going, I expect LHS on whatever replaces it in the shorthaul role, be it 737 next year or A320 series later. Seniority be damned.

CPB

Grandfather rights for Mr Pit Bull
 

You will find that provided you have the hours (3500 at the last count) the 750 or so CEP's above you on the master seniority list that don't have the minimum hours will have to watch you take the LHS of the RJ's replacement. Grandfather rights will not happen just like they didn't happen when the ATP bases were shut down. You need to be less divisive and more practical (ask BOAC about injustice re Dan Air, perhaps he may guide you to less embittered pastures)


Please do not wander too far down the particularly conspiratorial path by suggesting that your ex CFE history may act against you in future interviews for training positions as you are undermining your more valid points.

Shouldn't worry at all, judging by some of the muppets in trainer/checker jobs. "If in doubt... promote them!":rolleyes:

I'm not interested in comparison between CFE and Dan Air. Those arguements have all be done, I see no point in reiterating.

Essentially, Land ASAP, you seem to saying that future injustices are acceptable because in the past worst injustices occured? If that viewpoint is common, then heaven help all of us.

The training job was just meant to be an example. The point remains however that there is a body of feeling, expressed by amongst others HomerJ, that ex-CFE pilots are not proper members of the BA pilot community as a whole.

That is divisive.

And it is being divided and treated as second class citizens (e.g. the recent 'X-mas' Bonus, or lack therof), that manifests itself in the feelings of unhapiness as evidenced by myself and SS.

Our attitudes are symptoms, not the cause.

CPB

Cpb,

just to get my facts straight, what year did BA buy CFE?

cheers

zzz

Capt Pitbull

I don't see anyone in CFE as being any less of a pilot than the rest. A few I suspect but not all ex-CFE would have been quite happy to remain as CFE and completely seperate from BA. I think i'm probably correct in saying that most are chuffed to bits. I know that the ones I have spoken to are. The opportunities now are far greater than they would ever have been. If I was a low experienced pilot outside of BA in my first job with an airline and then hey-presto I have a seniority number in BA, I would think Chritmas had come. I agree that it seems odd that a low experience co-pilot can be more senior than a captain, but thats only on paper, if you ever fly together your still the boss. It's going to be a long and bitter career for you if you can't just accept that you are now a number and join the queue like everyone else has.

P.S. correct me if i'm wrong but CFE didn't become wholly owned by BA until just a couple of years ago. Where does 1996 come into the equation?

Oh and by the way I also don't qualify for the Xmas holiday payment.

BA FD still view ex CFE as second class wannabbees, no offence, just a newy with aspirations to join BA, and in through the back door what ever way you look at it.

The aggrieved Capt.Pit Bull
 

CPB I know you find yourself in an unfortunate position and you have many words of sympathy above. Perhaps you should focus on a few harsh realities from the BA mainline perspective.

- There are 7500ish professional pilots in the UK
- About 3500 work for BA
- Up to about 2 years ago BA had the best T&C of any operator in UK and was the employer of choice at the top of any CV list.

- Every CEP position was sought by literally thousands of hopefuls.

- High calibre type-rated DEP candidates were attracted from other airlines as well as pilots ex HM Forces.

- CFE was at that time one of the lowest paid scheduled operators in the country (perhaps THE lowest) and was obliged to draw it's recruits from comensurately lower down the food chain.

Now I am no advocate of BA selection but one wonders just how many of our new colleagues were turned down by BA at application or during selection. OK not 100% applied but I would suggest only a small minority did not for domestic or age reasons.

So when CFE became instantly incorporated into the fold the Selectors immediately threw up their arms in disgust and went home, having wasted the last X years of their time.

Having been handed a BA seniority number on a plate was extremely fortuitous for you and I wish you only the best.

I understand from your earlier post that you took 2 years to command in CFE, please forgive me if that is incorrect. You appear to think that a simple direction to a Command on 737/Airbus will be benignly recieved by the mainline pilot corps?

Or having to jump through a few hoops to retain a training appointment onto another fleet?

On behalf of those who sweated and grafted their way through succesful selection and training I can tell you have seriously misjudged the mood.

Hand Solo,

I have not read such a lot of common sense on Pprune for a long time - congratulations!!

I get a little frustrated when some BACE pilots refer to the RJs as 'our 'planes'; what tosh - they are all owned by BA. BA wants them flown as cheaply as possible and if they could get a load of non Nationals to do it at non National rates they would be delighted.

BA refuses to have ALL the BACE pilots on the same list as BA. I agree that I have heard that the BA reps are offering access to the BA Master Seniority List and to share the 146/RJ opportunities. It would seem reasonable for BACE pilots to have exclusive access to the RJ/146s they are bringing to BACE and for BA mainline pilots to have the same rights to the 16RJs being transferred with both communities sharing in any extra RJs.

It is alleged that the BACE captains are preventing any agreement at the expense of the BACE FOs. A correspondent is correct; many of the CE captains are quite happy with what they are doing but many of the FOs want access to the greater BA variety and salaries. It's the FOs who should be telling their reps what they want, not the other way round.

Anyway, it may be for a temporary period only. I am informed that BA wants rid of all the RJ/146s and replaced with new 50/70 seat Embraers/Dorniers so BACE pilots will be flying all of them without any access to the mainline list whatsoever, if they are not careful!

In my long and happy flying career, I have never ceased to be amazed at what a happy and united bunch of chaps we have in BA.

I really have been very lucky for I have never had to work for BA or Saudia. I was one of the early chaps to be offered a place at Hamble but I had a serious outbreak of common sense and joined the Royal Air Force instead. I probably didn't earn so much money but I had a hell of a lot more fun. I've made up for the money bit since in my civilian career.

If you BA chaps stopped tearing chunks out of one another you could actually have a good thing going for you. Be nice to one another!

Just to let you know that we all don't feel as miffed as CPB - I am pleased as punch to be given the fantastic opportunity to be able to fly for BA - I know the companys going through a bit of a low at the moment but I really feel if we stop this completely pointless bickering and pull together instead of apart we might actually get somewhere. Hand - Keep up the good work!!

This thread clearly re-illustrates for many flight crew why working for BA is a bad idea if one discounts remuneration.

Ignoring pay this company has cabin crew who hate flight crew with management that hate them all. The front line all works to support a bloated management that manage very little for a lot of money. The unions frustrate any move to obviously required change.

Oh what a lovely company to spend 12 duty hours a day in. Not.

Never underestimate the value of going to work in a company where the manaement are nice enough and the cabin crew are a happy enthusiastic bunch. Add in an FO who likes working for the company and is keen for his readily obtainable Command and you have aeroplane heaven.

Turning to BA T&C's - well take a 25 year old BA FO who has just one fleet change to widebody and compare her to 25 year old starter in easyJet. Factor in the LHR vs LUT house price and over a career to 60 the person working for Stelios will be better off. Dissregarding the easyJet share scheme.

The BA pension is only a promise. It can be broken. The pension one can get personally cannot. The pay differential compensates.

BA is FUBAR'd for future SERIOUS recruitment unless they improve their T&C's.

Which I think they will do. Shortly.

PS

You may as well recognise reality Hand Solo, HomerJ and the like. We already operate 146s, and if you truly think BA management will have a fleet partly operated by high cost mainline guys, and partly by us profitable dudes, you really.......must have passed the BA Lego test.

You chaps really do live in another galaxy don't you? It's easy to see how much CRM and Leadership, community spirit etc etc you have by the way you have Secret Squirrel and Capt. PB reacting. Your well known patronising attitude is merely amusing, -
(some of us were instructing on fast jets when you had trainer wheels on your bicycle!)
- but sad.

Grow up and smell the roses. BALPA will not even squeak over the ex CFE blokes currently flying the RJs. They will sell them down the river over some sort of deal for the 'real' mainliners. We WILL have the RJS, and I'll wager that those of CFE that come to work with us will have a happier and more secure future than the ones who stay at Gatwick. (We don't hate our cabin crew, we rather like them) For those who DO stay at LGW, my sympathy is all with Secret Squirrel . Good luck mate, you have all our support, and you will, I am sure, retain your command over some spotty faced erk who can build a lego tower. Anyone who followed the threads on the CFE integration will be familiar with the nauseating hypocrisy coming from the mainliners, and the inevitability of the way a lot of good guys were screwed royally. Now they think they will do it to BRAL/Manx, anothe profitable and (relatively) happy independent sucked into BA. The extent of the BALPA involvement in the so called imaginary SCOPE can be seen from the amount of comms between mainline BALPA and our CC. ZILCH. Looking after their own. Again! Do you REALLY think BA management will let you set a precedent on a costly exercise like Scope? Scotty may very well actually beam you up before THAT happens.
And as a final note on the so called BA pilot skills......funny thing our sim chop rate has accelerated dramatically since we started taking the BA 'product'.

Nothing personal guys, just fact. :D

Little Prince:

With a handle like that I enjoyed reading your fairy tale. Your posting is pure management, or wannabe management - trainer are you?

I quote <a fleet partly operated by high cost mainline guys, and partly by us profitable dudes>

So mainline pilots=unprofitable eh?

I think you'll find that the profitability of an airline has little to do with pilot pay. You spout BS and you know it.

There are two kinds of postings on here, those which seek to IMPROVE T's & C's and those which seek to drag them down. You appear to fall firmly in the latter camp and you should now own up as the management plant you undoubtedly must be.

PS Prince, had it occurred to you that we are all in this together to improve our collective lot?

Well said overstress.

This whole debate comes down to two or three basics.

Firstly, pilot pay does not mean the difference between an airline making a reasonable profit or not.

Secondly, it is in all pilots' long term interest that pay and conditions should be improved and not eroded. I find it outrageous that someone purporting to be a pilot should advocate use of the lowest paying option.

Thirdly, management will always try to get things on the cheap- that's their job I suppose.

Incidentally, I think that Little Prince should show more respect for his younger professional collegues.

Little Prince
 

OK Little Prince…..

I am all done now with being moderate, understanding or conciliatory. I am quite happy to work with a bunch of reasonable men towards a better working life however you are now on your own.

When you are all working for peanuts for whoever/wherever we will:

- Clean off the graffiti from the toilets walls in Jubilee House
- Take down the snide comments from all the notice boards
- Get rid of the chewing gum
- Build some bridges to our alienated rostering staff & dispatchers
- Get on with building a profitable business.
- Try to remember what life was like before school turned out.

When the bat is being inserted where the sun-don’t-shine - Don’t bother looking to your new colleagues for support – It won’t be there.

I just remembered why we had pilot selection!

The Little Prince

Did you by any chance ever apply to BA?

So if it is all down to pilot costs how come Easyjet and Ryanair have higher salaries than both BA (unless you have done more than about 17 Years) and BACE but still manage to charge passengers lower fairs?

Little Prince of Darkness
 

Way too obvious Mr Prince. You have been summarily despatched to the compartment labelled "Management Plant".

Please Mr Prune can we have an 'ignore' function on this website?

Well Little Prince I'd almost cry at your post if I wasn't laughing so loud. As you enjoy fairy tales so much let me recount a real tale. Around two years ago I sat in a hotel bar in Europe with a CFE crew, around the time BA had proposed handing over most of EOGs routes to CFE. Nice guys they were too, but oh so insistent that the routes would come to them, BA pilots were too expensive, CFE pilots would make it work, BALPA wouldn't stand in the way and they were on a tremendous thing. Two years later, what do we see? No wholesale route transfers to CFE due to BALPA intervention, CFE pilots shafted by the transfer of their aircraft to a lower paying operator, CFE captains facing the possible loss of command and all down to the whim of BA management. Not such a pretty picture now is it? In two years time it'll be the same story again, except this time it'll be BACE sitting on the bat instead of CFE. As for your comic assertion that BACEs profitability is so significant, well just remember that it wasn't so long ago BA were the worlds were most profitable airline, recording profits of over £500 million. Once the FS&S shake down is completed and the North Atlantic picks up we'll be back there again.


So what if you were instructing on fast jets when I was a boy. Where have you gone since then? If you're so good why aren't you in BA like your old fast jet QFI mates, many of whom work at a very happy regional base, where they get on well with the cabin crew and earn more money than you.

:( :( :(
Management must really be laughing at the way you are all behaving like children. I'm BACE, and I agree with the concept we WILL get the RJs. That doesn't mean we have to fall out about it.
If there is one thing you can be 100% sure of in this industry; any airline, any country, anywhere.and all the time.......:rolleyes: it is that (wait for it;) ):

Things will always change ! :eek:

Anyone who doesn't believe this, is doomed to failure - so lets stop trying to create a second class airline (:p to all you smartass Mainliners), and stop trying to live in the past, (:cool: to all you isolationist CFE and BACE guys!)

If we don't speak together, we'll be shafted alright, but it would be far worse to be shafted by our so-called supposed 'colleagues' in what used to be the world's favourite. :mad:

The only people I see here trying to create a second class airline are you and your colleagues Fox One. If you think you WILL get the RJs then you are taking jobs from the CFE guys. No ifs, no buts. They aren't going to be allowed to fly them on any salary. As you're so happy to fly them at T&Cs so far below mainline, EOG, BAR and ex-CFE then you are eagerly reducing the number of well paid jobs in the UK airline industry by about 150. Please explain how that is not creating a second class airline. The management are laughing very hard, and you're just tickling their toes. Change is constant, but there's change for better and change for worse.

:o As some of my colleagues have observed Handyboy, you really are a rather strange individual.. If you recall, there were a large number of CFE chaps who didn't want to be part of BA, and there were a huge amount of us who felt the same.
If you think that your thinly disguised attempts at retaining loss making routes -
(don't really care about that, OUR company has consistently been profitable, and those of us who have stayed with it have done so because we actually like it, and our regional jobs, even if they didn't attract main line major levels of T and C.
- and your attempt to reduce us to a small aeroplane operator - (yes, we know whats the real story, Mainline BALPA actually want scope at 70 seats - I wonder why!!!!!) you are deluding yourself.
Remember laddie, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN.

Why not go with the flow, instead of selfishly trying to retain it all for yourself - oh, and don't give us that BS about trying to get us all on mainline Ts and Cs - sorry, must go, the toothfairy is calling!

Yes lots of people at CFE didn't want to be part of BA. A large number did, and with just a few exceptions most are financially better off with BA - better T&Cs, more opportunity. Your company has been consistently profitable, trading for several years now on our name and reputation. Well lucky you, I'm sure thats all down to your hard work on low pay, in fact your pay must make or break all of those routes, just like you think ours does. I'm sure you have stayed with it because you like your regional job, just like most of the guys at BAR have stayed with it, despite inferior T&Cs to mainline, who you are so keen to displace.

As for your assertions that all 70+ seats is BALPAs target for scope, please don't flatter yourself. I couldn't give a rats ass about 70, 80, or 90 seat flying. The further away from me the better, and I'm sure almost all my BA colleagues agree. But when you start taking BA aircraft, flown by BA pilots out of the BA inventory and then hand them over to another company, well thats a different matter entirely. If 'going with the flow' means handing over our positions to you just because you're cheap then I choose to swim the other way.

Now on to your assertion as to me being a strange individual. Would you like to back that up with some evidence, or shall we just put that down to childish name calling laddie?

Oh how lovely it must be to work for BA. Pilot group against pilot group against cabin crew against everyone else.

Face it guys. Gatwick is knackered. Easy are going to clean up on the European routes, BA will retrench and from then its a downward spiral. No airline ever survived by becoming smaller..

BA should have taken over CFE and handed over all routes to them OR kept Go and done the same.

BA will become a long haul airline with medium haul feeders in-house. All shorthaul is essentially screwed. All it would take is an agreement with Easy etc. to offer transfer of baggage and codeshare and Bingo.

You don't fly to CAP371, your aircraft do 8hrs a day no 13, you pay your cabin crew a fortune and your groundstaff are so protected by seniority and unions that they do very little for a small fortune with bad grace.

The flightdeck crew are great operators to a man.

Shame really. Glad I never accepted the offer.

PS

I am quite sure, Mr. Handjob, that the attitude you portray will impress all my colleagues in BACE, from Brymon, BRAL and Manx, as to just how fortunate we are to be joining an organisation whose employees so clearly and vocally want nothing but the best for us. Your sheer arrogance in referring to our operations under your colours - bear in mind these were charged for by BA, simply because YOU couldn't get a return on them. Doubtless this was a BA management plot to disadvantage you poor overworked and underpaid BA pilots. Bear in mind that even though we paid BA through the nose for the franchise, we STILL made a profit on them. But, lest we forget, you and your friends have our best interests at heart. We can tell from your contemptuous references to us that you are clearly delighted to have us as part of BA. I wonder, could it be because you know we could (and lets face it, probably will, in time) be operating more and more of your aeroplanes, and making even more profit. You have to remember that actually, some of us would be delighted to do your jobs at 2/3rds the salary - hey, we'd probably do it better too! You note I say "some". This is because the only reason most of us haven't already joined you is that we like life in the regions, and we DID like life as part of a Company where everyone knew each other, and could resolve problems without the grinding corporate machine represented by BALPA and BA .
Well, that's history now, but if I were in your shoes WHATEVER you fly, I'd be VERY worried. As my mate said, change is the only sure thing, and corporate views change. Remember you came from BEA and BOAC, once upon a time, big was thought to be beautiful. I wonder if that's still the case.

BALPA.??? (Pause for guffaws) Oh yes, that's where a BA long haul expat Captain is trying to displace the General Secretary, because apparently you don't like him either. What's the matter, did he not provide a suitable exec limo to take you to your aircraft? Or did he dare to suggest that the cheeseboard was an anachronism? Seems you don't like anyone who doesn't agree with you and doesn't pass you another cheeseboard. You carry on matey boy, you are doing the best single Captain Lemming job I've ever seen to REALLY encourage us to turn the clock back a few years. What goes around etc etc. So when is my Airbus course then, I should think they'll be next on their way to us, closely followed by the shuttle!

Do keep it up, I laughed till my eyes were dry. You're not a lemming at all are you, more of a DODO!!:)

A few days ago I tried to suggest to all of you "BA chaps" that you should bury the hatchet, but, as always, greed and avarice is coming to the top of the pile. War has now broken out within BA yet again, it would appear.

I seriously think that we are (within the next few years) going to witness the final collapse of the Imperial Airways/British Airways/BOAC/BEA/BA Country Club PLC. As an ex-GK employee (who was badly shafted by the likes of Lord King and Sir Adam Thompson and had my flying career totally f***ed for 13 months), I should really have little sympathy, but time is a great healer and strangely enough, I just cannot believe how much hatred you guys in BA still have for each other- you have learned nothing. I was "seconded" to BEA for a year on the Viscount many years ago and their (BEA) hatred for BOAC was amazing.

Being out of work is not fun. Certainly, I would suggest that you chaps in BA seriously consider your future. The UK government is not going to bail you out. If you stil need some confidence, just look at what happened to Equitable Life!

To Mr Solo; I have to apologise in advance (with reference to his RAF fast jet pilots); As I have already indicated, I was offered a position on one of the very early Hamble courses. (I recently found the BOAC welcoming blurb in the attic and was amused to read that "a Senior BOAC 707 Captain" could "possibly" earn £5000 per year).

Dear Mr Hand Solo, Not all of us in the Royal Air Force were fast jet pilots and to a lot of us, the alternative was by choice. In my case, I wanted to see the world and spent my entire RAF career on 4-engined transport aircraft complete with a good F/E.

I never did a ground tour and I managed 9000 hours on 4-engined aeroplanes. To my astonishment, I became a training captain on 4-engined aeroplanes at the age of 25. It must have worked out OK for I have never had a complaint.

I did my ATPL at Kidlington some 3 years before leaving the RAF. In those days a Seneca was £72 per hour but I had to start all over again despite my RAF experience.

Despite the fact that my wardrobe has more uniforms therein than the Imperial War Museum, I have had a good civilian career. Put simply, I got a DC-10 command within a year of leaving the Air Force and I have not had to move seats since. I have probably made a lot more money than I would have had I joined BA and I have had a hell of a lot more fun than the folk that I see squabbling on Pprune!

Be nice to one another or else your huge inflated bubble is going to burst!

Hey Jay Dubbya, well said. Why is it that all the common sense originates elsewhere than the mainline BA sources. It used to be instructive to have a read of their private forum, using the old Skippy6 password - certainly their guys were not shy about sharing access! And wow, if you had only read all the posts about needing a BA man at the top of BALPA!!!

However, being both ex mil and BACE, sense must prevail. As JW said, the final collapse could be imminent. Who do you think is most vulnerable - the lower or the higher cost elements of the operation? Don't need a Flight Engineer to work that one out! We in BACE are very well aware that pilot salaries are not the be all and end all, either in terms of proportion of operating cost, or in relevance to a good quality of life; - but on the other hand, in security of future and tenure, the answer might look a little diffferent???????. Remember how a certain Mr A. Scargill thought he was invincible because of the might of his union, and the skirmishes he had won previously against previous opposition.
We all have a pretty good deal by anyone's comparison. As Sheryl Crow sings,
"It ain't about getting what you want, it's about wanting what you got....."

So, let's not fall out. Negotiating and compromise is the way forward, not bully boy Hand 'Mick McGahey' Solo dictating what we will and will not get, whilst expecting his own cosy little world to continue unaffected. I've flown with some of our BA kaydets and kaydettes, and mostly they're just as good as the usual new entry, and they're mostly just glad to have a job, and be doing some interesting flying. One might think too that a grounding in the world of the ATP, Dash 8 and Jetstream will probably do them far more good in terms of a career foundation than jumping straight into a Scroggs wundajett!

Hoping for a more friendly way forward................(but not holding my breath).

JW and Barron,

Nice to hear a little objectivity - I was getting pretty sick of all the precious my job's more important than your job type of stuff that's been prevalent on this thread. One thing I can't abide is someone trying to tell me that a particular job is not for me but for only for the likes of whoever. I've just had to put up with all of that crap at another British Major ...

WoW! Some contributers here positively drip venom and envy (which are both the same colour). I hope I never have to share a flight deck with them, knowingly or not.

There seems to be huge ill-feeling from certain regional individuals whilst some of them seem to be getting things hugely out of proportion whilst offering to do my job for 2/3 pay whilst doing it better!

Well I don't see how we're ever going to improve t&c for UK airline pilots whilst individuals like Charizad (who got the wrong end of the stick about Hand Solo's location) abound.

Tell me your management position, Chazza? You can't be a line pilot with your giveaway offers, surely?

I think it accurate that there is a widespread feeling, (true or otherwise) that BA are not remotely interested in assisting us in BACE, purely in lining their own pockets. Whatever the rights or wrongs of their own position, remuneration wise, they cannot expect us to cheer as our takeover results in our own degradation of Ts and Cs, not to mention aircraft types.

Its just a pity there is not more communication from BA BALPA, but from where we are, they appear more interested in changing the Gen Secretary, in order to achieve enough disruption to force a pay rise. Again, right or wrong in fact, I think it is pretty selfish prioritisation.

Name calling is always wrong, but some people really do seem to deliberately provoke it. Its a pity there isn't a management filter on here, not to mention an agent provocateur filter.

Anyone think JF will actually win?

Maximuss:

Who do you mean in BA - we the line pilots or the management?

I can assure you that as a line pilot I would wish to see you operating on best terms and conditions you can get from the company, nothing less.

(I have worked for other companies before on worse conditions and would not wish to go back).

I only wish that some of your colleagues would wish the same to us.

I respectfully suggest Mr/Capt Moderator that we treat this thread like the last hour or so of day 5 of a rain/bad light interupted cricket test match.No one has even the remotest chance of winning so we should all call it a draw and adjorne to the bar and get pissed and s*%tcan the management in the best possible style!

HOMER:

Please don't talk to me about selection processes as if they were a hardship. You, just like everybody else, read up on what was required and you had every angle covered before you went in. You probably even bought yourself a leggo kit or Knex or whatever it is they use. You played the white man all along and you duped them into thinking that you were just the person you were looking for. You fawned and you won a scholarship for which you had to pay not a penny. THAT is possibly the only thing that comes close to a hardship. Had you not been so fortunate yourself on the one or two days it takes to complete the whole process I ask myself how many of you cadets would actually have had the mettle to find your own way of becoming pilots.

I won't bore all and sundry with the hardships that vocational pilots have had to go through or the potentially life threatening hardships that our boys in blue have had to go through as they are well documented but don't make me laugh, Homer.

You may well be a good pilot and a good operator but you know absolutely nothing about airlines or hardships; all you understand is seniority lists.

You don't understand, do you, the hypocrisy of our situation. We could have done all those routes far cheaper and far more efficiently than BA. Fine, we would be on a lower wage but we had a cool airline (with a crap rosterring system!) and all it's problems were being ironed out slowly. Eventually we would have had bigger aircraft just like GB. We didn't have to put up with stroppy dispatchers or get called into the office because we berated them for not doing their job properly. We didn't have ramp managers tell the tug drivers that they couldn't load a couple of pax' bags in the hold (so that we could make a slot!!!). We couldn't be seen to show up BA as we had been doing for years! We couldn't beat them so we had to join them. Fine, now they are doing to us precisely what they didn't want us to do to them: fly our routes with their aircraft and shove us aside quoting seniority (which, if anything, we should have had AT LEAST from Dec 2000 anyway).

If my attitude seems strange to you then it's because you are what I said you were; a Silver Spoon Pilot. I worked hard for four years to get my command (and longer if you count training and instructing) and I'm dammned if I'm going to lose it to a bunch of hypocrites without a fight and a rant.

I have been willing to accept my lot, Homer, don't get me wrong. If my fleet had not been touched, or if you people hadn't been trying to strip me of my hard-earned stripes to protect your own interests I'd be Mr Friendly. As it is, it's you or me and my name ain't Jesus.

Hand Solo:

150 jobs are not being lost, don't be so melodramatic. Acording to Lloydy baby there are more than enough places at LHR and LGW to fit us all in over the next three years; which is how long it will take them to crew 16 RJ's fully.

Also, your assertion that it is management and BA that are trying to stiff us is hogwash propaganda nonsense. In my case, if anything, and for what I'm 'fighting/bleeting/whingeing' -whatever - I've got management on my side because if they can, they'd rather I retain my command as they'll have to pay me as such anyway, so they may as well get their money's worth.

To all those who are advocating moderation, I appreciate where you're coming from. To a certain extent you are right. However, you have to appreciate that BA is too big and therefore it's individuals too selfish. It's making me so, but only because in order to survive, I fight fire with fire.

When the only words that ever come out of a BA pilot is seniority, seniority, seniority you become a little weary and there will never be understanding; they don't care about anything else.