Dear Colleagues,

A lot has happened since my last article in the December Cockpit Flash. You can find below a brief summary.

Europe woke up to a different world after the terrorists’ attack last year in France. All of a sudden, we started talking about OCAD, terror level, etc.

However, during that time we have been very busy getting to grips with Altea. Thanks to your numerous reports, we could quickly convince our management that the system showed a few minor bugs. The transition period was a tough period for all of us, but things should now run smoothly. May I encourage you to keep on writing your reports: it is the only tool that helps to improve the system. If there is no report, it did not happen…

This brings us to our new Cube reporting tool. We pointed out some user-unfriendly issues with it. These are difficult to resolve overnight. However, since we are not the only country using this tool, we hope to see things moving in a more user-friendly direction in the near future.

After the Altea-hurdle, the new flight time duty times came into play. The rules should be clear to everybody, but… BeCA, together with the unions, have on some points another ‘interpretation’ than our management. Both the management and we had meetings with the BCAA to sort things out. The faster they take a position, the faster things will be clear for all of us. We are awaiting clarifications on: delayed reporting, sign-out time, single day free of duty, captains discretion, etc. As soon as we have more news, we will come back to you.

In March, the tragic attacks at Brussels Airport and city occurred. As a result, Brussels Airport was closed and we received an ‘exemption’ to change our home-base to Liège. All of us were very flexible in helping out our company to get organized in this difficult situation. Thanks to this, we didn’t even have to cancel one single flight. Nevertheless, since our management didn’t respect all of the conditions to comply with the exemption, we wrote a letter to the BCAA and met them. We explained to the BCAA how things were handled in real-life. But before any actions were taken, Brussels Airport reopened and the exemption was stopped.

On the 20th of April, we had a meeting at the Ministry of Pension. We explained the problems that arise during a pilot’s career and how a correct pension plan could help (read our articles on this subject above for more information on our position and actions).

In May, we had the 4-yearly social elections within our company. And once again, thank you for your vote and trust in our team. Together with Ann and Marc, we are convinced we can make a positive difference in our day-to-day life. Our “honeymoon weeks” stopped quite quickly when the management revealed its plans for the next winter season. Be assured we are keeping a close watch on what is coming. During the last weeks of June, another Thomas Cook Pilot Group meeting will take place, this time in Copenhagen, where we will discuss this within the pilot group.

And, in between all this, we organized a staff meeting to discuss our Common Labor Agreement on cost competitiveness. We made a proposition to our management that a honest business cannot refuse. If however, we get a negative answer, we will proceed for a full recuperation of our invested money. If we do not get the promised return, we want a refund of our investment!

Many happy landings!

Bart Smet, Vice-President TCAB