Richard Yeomans

Things are looking pretty bad in the world economy and Netjets is not immune.  The company needs to reduce the number of duty days by 60,000 per annum and that means pilots will need to leave the company.  Last night I went to the London roadshow to see the management run through the options on offer.  When I arrived at the hotel I was really pleased to see so many of my colleagues I haven’t seen for ages and it was a little bit of a party atmosphere.  We were soon lead into a room and the management team gave 150 crew members a presentation.  It was pretty depressing introduction to the state of the company.  Things are bad, very bad and the company needs to take measures to protect the company and that means people are going to have to leave. 

They presented the voluntary packages and they seemed really very generous and allow people to take time out of the company.  It all seems warm and fluffy.  It was not until the end that I had a chance to talk to some of the guys affected that it really struck home.  There is a very human cost to this and it will be life changing to many people.  Some pilots will find the next few years very difficult and may have left good jobs to come to Netjets to fly and now they are being asked to leave.  If enough people don’t take the voluntary programmes, then it may be necessary to make compulsory redundancies and the terms will be a lot worse.  It’s going to be tough times for everyone.