Breaking news…all change in 2004 for wysiwyg!

Three years ago I left the regional world for the interesting flying in the charters. The charters probably contain the most interesting flying a pilot can do. The workload is very unbalanced with ultra quiet winters (occasionally only working 1 day a month) but that can mean working the equivalent of 12 months labour through the 6 months of the summer! This can be excused when you consider the amazing variety of work that you just don’t get in scheduled flying. Just this year alone I’ve flown for Aerolineas Argentinas, Monarch, easyJet and Air France as well as doing my own TCX work. I’ll have operated in climates from +40 degrees in Africa and the Middle East to -25 degrees in the Arctic circle and operated into about 40 different airports.

The main downside has been the lack of job security. I (and 54 others) were given notice of redundancy after 911, however our pilot union (BALPA) fought the redundancies and saved my skin. However, redundancy continues to be a concern at the end of every season and after 3 years of this I am starting to think it’s not the way I want to live. Everybody knows the worries at MYT and I for one certainly hope they pull through. The demise of any UK charter will only serve to strangle terms and conditions amongst employees in the remaining carriers for years to come. Indeed it’s not just MYT that are having a rough time. Although TCX is doing very well at the moment, our German bosses are having a terrible time. These are difficult times and the charter industry has to do some serious evolving if it wants to come through it. The main attack is really in the form of the low cost airlines and is one that is unlikely to go away. The question is who is bold enough or strong enough to change their whole approach in order to survive.

So after all this talk what am I going to do about it to try to protect my position?

As a couple of you know, at the beginning of November I had an interview with another company. It has been a long, long wait to get the result but I’m delighted to say that after the hardest interview of my life I heard today that I have been accepted to join…
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Virgin Atlantic on either the A340 or the B747 next year!

Regards
wysiwyg