Below the report by your BeCA Vice-President of the main events that happened in Brussels Airlines since the last edition of our Cockpit Flash.

Following the acquisition of the remaining shares of the company by Lufthansa, rumours about our future flourished. But it is now official that they intend to integrate Brussels Airlines into the Eurowings business.

Then in March Brussels Airlines revealed its intention to integrate Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium (TCAB) operations into our company: all flight and cabin crews plus two A320s will join us in exchange of a 5-year contract with the Thomas Cook tour operator to operate their holiday flights.

This soon became the focal point of the discussions in the crew room.

An increase of production means a growth of the company, with positive outcomes in terms of career plan, fleet increase and creation of new jobs.

On the other hand we have to be cautious not to overload the crews with the increase of flight duty.

We have already several issues in the company: seasonality, increased use of wet leased aircraft, number of contract pilots above the maximum allowed in the CLA, holiday allocation, part-time contracts and revenue package.

It is obvious that the new deal will exacerbate the problem, given the increased seasonality flights.

B.air pilots are getting worried about their career, which is understandable : should they be bypassed by some TCAB pilots, they might lose short term prospects. Previous integration (Birdy) or merging (SNBA-VEX) raised their loads of similar concerns but we have seen that on the long term the advantages outweighed the inconveniences of such a deal.

However this can only happen if our management comes with a good project and guarantees to allow enough career options to all pilots.

Since the announcement of the impending integration, we have been waiting for clear information on our future regarding the company’s decision about this increased production.

We therefore wrote a letter to both CEOs (TCAB – http://bit.ly/2vVrnDX – and b.air – http://bit.ly/2wACcsf) asking them to communicate their plans, in order to answer the numerous questions raised by the pilots which might lead to distractions in our cockpits. You can find here Mr Gustin’s response: http://bit.ly/2vLHVxu.

We should also keep in mind what our future will be in the long run within the big German picture.

Christophe Sambre, Vice-President Brussels Airline