State of affairs

摘要

The aviation industry has weathered many storms, but never anything quite like the crisis we're currently facing. It seems like a lifetime ago, but at the start of this year aviation was looking forward to continued boom times: 5% per annum growth for the foreseeable future was predicted. All that optimism drained away - very slowly at first, but then as a deluge - and UK aviation has, in very large part, gone into complete hibernation since the start of April. Not surprisingly, airlines have reacted in the short term, and BALPA has reacted with them. As the prospect of pilots being laid off was becoming clear, we negotiated packages to maintain as much of earnings as possible. This was more successful in some airlines than others. Pilots employed by agencies have been particularly hard hit, as those agencies had no cash reserves to fall back on - a reminder of the precarious nature of some employment practices in this industry. The government's Job Retention Scheme has helped significantly, and the temporary, short-term deals that BALPA made to mitigate the worst effects of the grounding of aviation was a sensible approach.