BALPA has a new National Executive Council elected from and by a much wider constituency than before. It has a powerful mandate for action to tackle the key challenges of our industry. But I would be surprised if there was disagreement on what the challenges are. These strike me as the top 7:

Challenge 1 – responding to the economic downturn. Talk of the UK coming out of recession doesn’t fit with my reading of our industry. And that will continue to negatively impact jobs, terms and conditions. We have been successful through creative means to minimise the impact, but can that continue or is the toolbox of ways of avoiding wide scale compulsory redundancies near empty? This will test our ingenuity and resolve.

Challenge 2 – the employment scene. This is changing. People are not leaving at 55 or 60. Trainees keen for any opportunity continue to get pumped through a training system too slow to react to economic reality. Establishment numbers are being cut as capacity is taken out, especially over the winter. This pilot surplus will not get soaked up in the mid or far east and moving away from the UK is not to everyone’s taste. The human reaction to this triple whammy might be to get any piloting job going and the exploitation of this by airlines (and not just the usual culprits) is as distasteful as it as worrying. The development of the Brookfield contractor who has no guaranteed job and who carries all the risk by only being called in when there is work, is a worrying sign of things to come. Getting sense into this roller coaster world of pilot labour supply and choking supply is a key challenge.

Challenge 3 – employers ain’t what they used to be. We have traditionally aimed at a mature relationship with employers. To an extent we know mutual destruction is possible, so against that background we generally work to a common aim of fairness and respect. But the examples of Ryanair, jet2 and DHL in our 2009 Annual Report show a new breed of employers coming through whose sole aim is to get their way and to stamp on anything that hinders them. Developing strategies to meet them head on whilst continuing to model progressive and productive industrial relations for the majority is our bread and butter.

Challenge 4 – Europe is changing. Economic liberalisation is here to stay. The growth of transnational ownership is gathering pace yet labour laws are a hotchpotch of national rules. Regulation is moving to EASA and Cologne. Yet pilot associations are still structured around a national flight safety model that is becoming redundant and no where is this more obvious than on FTLs. Securing new international labour laws and changing our focus on the CAA will raise questions on whether our strap line of being ‘United in the Interests of British Airline Pilots’ is fit for purpose.

Challenge 5 – the political scene is changing. We currently have a Government that has supported aviation by allowing capacity growth and yet has frustrated with the hikes in APD. The likelihood is the Government will change in 2010 and we should expect a new Government that is just “plane” hostile to aviation in every aspect and is part of the bandwagon blaming aviation for the ill effects of climate change. We will have an uphill struggle to get any fairness here.

Challenge 6 – frustrated by the rules. As well as this broad sweep of strategic challenges there are the niggles that can do so much to spoil what at heart is still a great job. The security regime, treatment by managers, being told you are “too expensive”, and access to the flight deck are obvious examples. What can we do to keep our eyes on the big picture but make life better on a day to day basis.

Challenge 7 – membership engagement. Reading our 2009 Annual Report, I hope our members are reassured about where their subs go. But are we doing enough to harness the talent,ideas,opinions and experiences that abound amongst BALPA members? What more can we do to engage members in developing and delivering our policies? Members and their representatives are what makes BALPA and we have a major challenge in doing this when there is perhaps a reticence about getting involved in the current climate.

2010 is going to be tough. But without BALPA it would just be plain bleak.