Hello! A BA pilot here! I've only just found this thread - I had no idea there would be a thread about it here, I've just been looking at pilot-y places. I haven't had chance to read all 606 messages yet, but a quick glance through did make me chuckle. Especially this;
" The only instance when a pilot would earns less would be only this:
IF A PILOT IS A JUNIOR FIRST OFFICER VS A CSD WITH 30 YEARS FLYING EXPERIENCE."
I do recall a flight, a long time ago, when it became apparent to me that I was the lowest paid person working on the aircraft at that moment in time. And I'm not just talking about the captain and the 6 cabin crew, I'm talking about the dispatcher (a sad victim of the cost cutting drive in BA and a job role missed by the pilots,) the refueller, the pushback crew, even the honey wagon man! (The toilet cleaner, to everyone else.) I was considering a job as a Safety and Ememrgency Procedures (SEP) trainer to boost my income, as they were paid a daily allowance that exceeded mine as a junior co-pilot.
I earn good money now, but my God, have I worked for it! I sit now at 36000ft in charge of a 176 ton jet aircraft while the captain is taking their rest, usually over a region of the world we pilots call the GAFA (Great African Fuck All) and negotiate my way past giant thunderstorms, over deserts and mountain ranges, talking to air traffic controllers you can barely understand who are probably operating out of a little hut in a war torn country, in a language they can barely speak. I hope that the skills I practice every 6 months in the simulator will be sufficient should the shit hit the fan, and that I don't kill everyone on board - including myself. I've landed aircraft in storms, gales, snow and fog, and forced myself to be the calm British Airways pilot voice reassuring the passengers that the turbulence we just had is a normal occurence while I have sat there with white knuckles on the control column.
So yes - I do feel I earn my money. And yet, after 12 years in the company I still only earn a little more than the CSDs at the top end. I realise they have been there longer, but honestly? The jobs are not comparable.
The situation that the company and the cabin crew are in now is one of such complexity that I doubt that even many of the cabin crew understand how they have ended up where they are. The Pilot community is watching the situation unfold from behind the sofa as though it is a particularly scary film, but this is real. Willie Walsh is not a man who will bend to any union demand - he is a negotiator and a hard one at that. The Unite and BASSA reps seem to have attempted to negotiate hard too, but in a completely flawed way. The description 'lambs to the slaughter' has been used in many place wrt the cabin crew in recent days, and the pilots genuinely believe that the unions have done their members a huge disservice. But this is a situation that has been building up over decades.
Many cabin crew are reasonable, hard working people who have been allowed over the years to fall into a mindset that the company is out to get them, no matter what. The company is always looking to take something away, or pull a fast one. The same mind set encourages a regular 'them and us' attitude between cabin crew and flight crew, and for the most part this is a one way street. Yes, there are the odd crusty captains or Atlantic barons still out there, but pilots are taught from day one to lead their crew. Cabin crew are taught from day one to follow not the pilots, but to defer to the CSD as their leader. 'Flight deck,' (oh, that we are described as the location where we work rankles us so much! We do not refer to cabin crew as 'galley!') flight deck are merely the drivers and the CSD is expected to liaise with the captain. First officers are spare parts.
The fact that cabin crew are, as a rule, so union-bound and consider themselves so removed from the people that they work with, means that they are not willing to accept any explanation for anything other than the union's. This mentality is what has led to this strike, with many cabin crew striking because the union has told the cabin crew the comapny needs to be taught a lesson.
Tragically, there are cabin crew out there who have declared they would rather BA go bust than consider increases in their working efficiency (they were not asked originally to take a pay cut nor were they asked to work longer hours - they were asked, as were all departments in BA, to discuss amongst themselves how they would like to reach the cost savings required of them by BA. But the union chose not to go to their membership with BA's requests. Instead they waited until BA told them what the solution would be, thus passing up the opportunity to be part of the solution themselves.)
It is a foolish person indeed who takes an action that will result in the loss of thier livelihood if they succeed and in a reduction in their working conditions if they don't. But as has been said already - like lambs to the slaughter, the strikers have followed their union leaders into this situation. I feel sorry for them either way, but hope they do not succeed. I like my job and am proud to work for British Airways.
Phew! All that after reading only 2 pages worth! On to the other 23 pages now.