BA cabin crew agree to kill their employer for once and for all…I mean strike

I know, I was just explaining the reason for my being quite so… Err… Plain speaking! 🙂

Paul

No problem – now we just need to hear from the CC side what the benefits are!!:rolleyes:

I know what you mean – I wasn’t being critical………

I know, I was just explaining the reason for my being quite so… Err… Plain speaking! 🙂

Paul

Perhaps, but in a time when so many are having a far, far worse time than these idiots that’s exactly how I feel!

Paul

I know what you mean – I wasn’t being critical………

PMN has expressed my view rather more forcibly than I feel

Perhaps, but in a time when so many are having a far, far worse time than these idiots that’s exactly how I feel!

Paul

PMN has expressed my view rather more forcibly than I feel, but nevertheless I would welcome a response from those who do support the strikers to hear what they believe the benefits will be and to whom. If there is no benefit, there is no point in striking.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this case ( and if anyone can find any clear water they must be magicians ) I cannot accept that the strike action is anything but totally misguided. I simply do not see how there can be any winners. Cabin crew will lose more money and some are bound to lose their jobs; BA will lose revenue and so extend the time before which they might return to profiability; the public will turn against BA and so exacerbate the problem. It is sheer lunacy.

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been following this for a few days before clarifying any kind of thoughts on it and frankly, I think those striking are a bunch of selfish, stupid fools who shouldn’t have jobs to come back to when the strike is over. The entire country (and even entire damned planet) isn’t doing all that brilliantly financially at the moment, and these idiots should be grateful they at least have a job and have some kind of income. I’m not saying BA haven’t made mistakes but nonetheless, I’m sure no-one really wants to see them go under and this strike is achieving nothing but bringing an already troubled airline one step closer to just that.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would jump at those jobs. Get rid of the idiots who are willing to not only screw BA but screw their passengers as well, and get more sensible people in!

Paul

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this case ( and if anyone can find any clear water they must be magicians ) I cannot accept that the strike action is anything but totally misguided. I simply do not see how there can be any winners. Cabin crew will lose more money and some are bound to lose their jobs; BA will lose revenue and so extend the time before which they might return to profiability; the public will turn against BA and so exacerbate the problem. It is sheer lunacy.

This strike action is just un-believable really the really think that loosing the airline more money by walking out is going to improve the situation?

How can they expect to earn the money they do whilst the airline is loosing more money a day the any of them would probably earn in a lifetime?

And people accuse bankers of living in a dreamworld, the crew don’t seem to realise the consequences of their actions:
people aren’t going to be home for christmas with their families, let’s just hope some of them get stuck away from home, see how they feel.

The strike could not only spell the end for BA but what about those indirectly employed by the airline? Such as the handling agents, the agent I work for handles about 6 BA flights a day from a major reigonal airport, they are one of our biggest contracts, we already lost the best part of £1m nationally in the last year.

So not only are the crew talking themselves out of a job it’s people like me who barely earn £12-£13k a year handling them that face loosing everything!

All I can say now is Good Luck Willie with the high court cause I’m damn well behind you!!

Whilst I am sympathetic towards the crew’s grievances, I do think that now is not the best time to go on strike. Perhaps if they chose to do it for 12 days from 2nd Jan as that would still cause major disruption, but just lessen the impact on the travelling public.

What would you regard as a reasonable settlement ?

The same deal that the LGW crews have settled for, a deal negotiated ironically by the same union people that are masterminding the LHR debacle. I dare say that I’ll be seen as anti union just because I can see the BA managements point of view here and dare to point out the stupidity of the strikers and what they are proposing to pull at this sensitive time of year, but I can live with that. I am in the airline industry AND in a union and neither myself nor the colleagues that I work with would consider pulling a stunt like this at this time and in the present condition that a major part of our industry is in. If those cabin crew were really concerned at the plight of the poor old fare payer, then they should tell the union to sling its hook until the new year, they’ve all got tongues in their heads.

You mention that oil prices over the recent times have been volatile and I agree, however you miss the point that I made about fuel hedging. That is the whole point of having a team of so called analysts who can pin point the best time to buy fuel in bulk, something which they have been very unsuccessful with, while other carriers have been more successful.

I think it’s a little harsh to lay the fuel hedging out as a fault of BA’s, because all fuel analysts were predicting it to stay high for longer than it did, and furthermore almost every airline which hedges made significant losses as a result. We undertook analysis at that time for one client and had to rely on significant amounts of fuel price data from ‘the professionals’ outside of the airlines, it was all wrong.

The pilots voluntarily took a 2% pay cut. And I THINK (come on you BA crews tell us all!) that the new T&C’s would not affect existing contracts with respect to salary and promotional changes until such times as someone is promoted, and therefore you can’t miss what you don’t have. Don’t forget the union is also fighting to stop new cabin crew from being recruited on new terms and conditions. The biggest T&C change appears to be the reduction in long haul cabin crew numbers, which actually only affects the pursers at this time per-se, but will affect others as they get promoted to this level

The average wage of a BA pilot was £116,000 and after the pay cut was reduced to £113,000. What they didn’t disclose is that there were increments in the deal which means that their salaries will rise to £117,000 by the end of this year. £1000 better off than they were…and then they get £13m worth of shares between them in a couple of years providing targets are met. Not bad eh?

The CC also offered to take a pay cut in the proposals that I had already mentioned, but I believe that one of the sticking points is that BA would only promote crew who would be on the new starter (lower) wage structure, therefore eliminating promotion from the existing staff.

I had already made mension of such fines earlier, so acknowledge their existence.

However, I think you miss the point as to how much of an effect the last 18 months has had on airlines. You’re not just talking about a credit crunch, but also record fuel prices for a large stretch of that period. With respect to the market, whilst the drop in passenger figures alone looks dramatic, you have to also account for the drastic reduction in yield to the airlines as they have cut fares in order to stop the reduction in traffic appearing greater than it could have been. BA is very susceptible to these changes because of it’s great dependence on business travel, especially in its premium cabins. Business travel drops away faster than leisure travel (as it’s booked at shorter notice) and has an increased effect on the bottomline as it tends to be more profitable for the airlines. It also means however that BA should pick up faster than others, providing passengers are willing to take a risk that their flights will go ahead!

You mention that oil prices over the recent times have been volatile and I agree, however you miss the point that I made about fuel hedging. That is the whole point of having a team of so called analysts who can pin point the best time to buy fuel in bulk, something which they have been very unsuccessful with, while other carriers have been more successful.

Totally agree with you Sky High. A 12 day strike has certainly come out of the blue and caught BA management off guard.
As I said before, from what I hear, CC were willing to compromise but management wanted to impose new T&C’S and lets face it, none of us would want to lose our T&C’s which had been negotiated previously with the current and previous management without some compromise.
Of course, if BA had offered CC the same deal that the pilots got….thats another story 😉

The pilots voluntarily took a 2% pay cut. And I THINK (come on you BA crews tell us all!) that the new T&C’s would not affect existing contracts with respect to salary and promotional changes until such times as someone is promoted, and therefore you can’t miss what you don’t have. Don’t forget the union is also fighting to stop new cabin crew from being recruited on new terms and conditions. The biggest T&C change appears to be the reduction in long haul cabin crew numbers, which actually only affects the pursers at this time per-se, but will affect others as they get promoted to this level

Do you also mean the “cumbersome cost burden” figure of £750m+ (and rising) of fines reportedly accrued by fraudulent behaviour by management who were allowed to be shopped by one of their colluding rivals? and the alledged figure of £200m of lost revenue from the T5 opening fiasco? and the botched fuel hedging program, the 3.7bn pension deficit….all management decisions.
You have to ask yourself how a company goes from record profits of £800m+ to a loss the next year and they blame the credit crunch?

I had already made mension of such fines earlier, so acknowledge their existence.

However, I think you miss the point as to how much of an effect the last 18 months has had on airlines. You’re not just talking about a credit crunch, but also record fuel prices for a large stretch of that period. With respect to the market, whilst the drop in passenger figures alone looks dramatic, you have to also account for the drastic reduction in yield to the airlines as they have cut fares in order to stop the reduction in traffic appearing greater than it could have been. BA is very susceptible to these changes because of it’s great dependence on business travel, especially in its premium cabins. Business travel drops away faster than leisure travel (as it’s booked at shorter notice) and has an increased effect on the bottomline as it tends to be more profitable for the airlines. It also means however that BA should pick up faster than others, providing passengers are willing to take a risk that their flights will go ahead!

What you seem to miss here is the cumbersome cost burdens which are preventing BA from competing on a glbal stage with other airlines.

Do you also mean the “cumbersome cost burden” figure of £750m+ (and rising) of fines reportedly accrued by fraudulent behaviour by management who were allowed to be shopped by one of their colluding rivals? and the alledged figure of £200m of lost revenue from the T5 opening fiasco? and the botched fuel hedging program, the 3.7bn pension deficit….all management decisions.
You have to ask yourself how a company goes from record profits of £800m+ to a loss the next year and they blame the credit crunch?

Has an airline strike ever put a company out of business? The last major strike was at Comair when the pilots struck for 89 days back in 2001 and yet that airline still operates. I remember numbers being thrown around at the time saying the strike cost Delta Airlines $100’s Millions. A few years ago Comair cancelled all flights over Christmas, 25th and 26th, because of a computer malfunction. When the airline does it with no warning it’s apparently not as big a deal when the employees give a weeks notice.

Like others have said here there’s probably a lot more to the story/reason behind this strike than any has led on. Of course the company is going to spin this as much as they can to villify the employees but what led the employees to this point? Voting to strike isn’t something taken lightly by anyone. Obviously there are possible repercussions that will impact you and your family especially in this already tough economy. Jobs aren’t really available right now so I’m sure that weighs heavily on them. Any company uses that for leverage obviously anytime they make cuts in a bad economy. “I know it sucks but it’s not like you can leave for another job so you’ll have to accept it.”

If you are right then I would agree but I don’t suppose BA would accept that reading. That is the difficulty, isn’t it, that the real problems remain half-hidden, neither side wants to compromise, although they probably say they do, so we end up with a stalemate which can only have one result.

From what I understand BA’s aircraft are overstaffed and cabin crews are well paid and well supported, compared to other airlines and are probably reluctant to accept reduced remuneration and conditions. Understandable. I wonder how many of the 90%+ plus who voted “yes” would also have voted “yes” if a 12 day strike had been included in the question.

Totally agree with you Sky High. A 12 day strike has certainly come out of the blue and caught BA management off guard.
As I said before, from what I hear, CC were willing to compromise but management wanted to impose new T&C’S and lets face it, none of us would want to lose our T&C’s which had been negotiated previously with the current and previous management without some compromise.
Of course, if BA had offered CC the same deal that the pilots got….thats another story 😉

All BA depts understand and agree that there has to be changes, however from what I am told I understand that this is not a dispute about finance and more to do with WW wanting to break the CC and the Union.
I believe that proposals were put forward to management from the Union that would exceed the figure that management wanted to save, only to have them thrown out. It appears that WW and his management team have lost any respect from their staff and therefore I think that someone else should be brought in before the airline is run into the ground.

If you are right then I would agree but I don’t suppose BA would accept that reading. That is the difficulty, isn’t it, that the real problems remain half-hidden, neither side wants to compromise, although they probably say they do, so we end up with a stalemate which can only have one result.

From what I understand BA’s aircraft are overstaffed and cabin crews are well paid and well supported, compared to other airlines and are probably reluctant to accept reduced remuneration and conditions. Understandable. I wonder how many of the 90%+ plus who voted “yes” would also have voted “yes” if a 12 day strike had been included in the question.

As long as someone is willing to do the job for less at a competitor, the union has no leverage. In most industrialized, western countries, “Critical Mass” for unions was lost years ago…they no longer have a labor cartel….they can no longer dictate wage/benefit rates on an industry wide scale. So the unions elect “labor friendly” politicians with a leftist bent and they try to protect existing (screw the unemployed youngsters) employees through regulation (for example tariffs against foreign competitors or laws like the one in the U.S. Senate right now which would require ALL First Officers to have an ATP and 1,500 hours of flight time).

We all want to buy good stuff on the cheap, but no one is willing to work for less. “Let someone else work for less,” but most customers are also employees somewhere else…..the cycle churns.

And on a related topic, how did a cabin job become a “career” anyway? Isn’t this a job you do for a few years until you can get something better? And as for the safety part, how confident are you that a 4′ 11′, 102 pound, 68 year old grandmother with osteoporosis could evacuate the airplane? Joe customer would much prefer to fly on a hip “new” airline which has new airplanes and staff that is 24 years old (and coincidentally makes half as much).

Presumably you have some insider knowledge but please reveal why sacking Walsh would solve anything? Surely the inherent problems will not vanish overnight and BA, as a business, desperately needs to cut its costs. Or am I missing something?:confused:

All BA depts understand and agree that there has to be changes, however from what I am told I understand that this is not a dispute about finance and more to do with WW wanting to break the CC and the Union.
I believe that proposals were put forward to management from the Union that would exceed the figure that management wanted to save, only to have them thrown out. It appears that WW and his management team have lost any respect from their staff and therefore I think that someone else should be brought in before the airline is run into the ground.

Only one resolution that I can see to nip this in the bud and stop it becoming a lose-lose situation is for WW to resign or be sacked.

Removing WW may take some of the immediate antaganism out of the current situation, but it won’t resolve the fundamental long-term problems. If WW were to be replaced, sooner or later any new CEO with business acumen would arrive at the same conclusion. You just can’t keep a business running indefinitely if its potentially losing £600m+ a year and has a pension defecit of £3.7bn. Things have to be changed and its mainly the cabin crew [union] now that have buried their heads in the sand and believe things can go on as they were 20 years ago.

Andy