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!

In an election year?

Gordon will be out there handing out tea and biscuits he’s that desperate to cling onto power

Moggy

Nah, the BA cabin crew must be in the bag for Brown because under Cameron there will be no third runway and no prospects of growth for BA, which will mean increased profits will need to be made on future cost savings! :diablo:

Anyway, BA cabin crew may actually help out the environmental lobby here, without BA there will be less need of a third runway.

Well you have to look at both sides of every story don’t you…? I dare say those who voted ‘yes’ in the ballot had very good reasons for doing so. Perhaps no job is indeed better than what BA have proposed to their staff. I assume it’s a question of ‘how low you are prepared to stoop” ?

Perhaps other, better informed forumites would care to pass comment ?

It’s not the no job option though is it, they will have to seek employment elsewhere, and as rightly pointed out by cockerhoop, that’ll come with a substantial salary cut, even at VS. And if they choose to work for most other airlines, the Purser has to serve passengers!

I’m happy for those closer to the matter (rather than necessarily better informed, an informed decision would be reviewing the precarious business situation too) to let us know their view.

I know BA have made some major fluff ups and through these wasted a lot of money (for example fines over price/fuel charge fixing etc), but they are where they are now and have to deal with that and fight to survive. BA cabin crews have enjoyed the good times, now, like many others, they need to accept the hard times too.