and possibly Airbus as well, given they say they are not in talks with any other manufacturer.

Well that’s because Airbus wouldn’t bow to the terms demanded and gave Scumbag O’Riley the finger! 😀

The question now is – were Ryanair making totally unreasonable demands, and were they making those demands because they don’t really need the aeroplanes anymore and are trying to save face?

Andy

O’Leary made the announcement dressed as Father Christmas, describing Ryanair, as El Mundo reports, as ‘the angels of all European airports’ and the only company capable of generating growth

Yeah right, tell that to all of the airports where he’s gone in all guns blazing and then pulled out or reduced capacity! :rolleyes:

More accurately, the quote should have been ‘the scourge of all European airports’

Defn: scourge – a source of widespread dreadful affliction and devastation such as that caused by pestilence

Andy

Well whoopeee for Boeing. The fugly looking plastic pig has actually finally gotten airborne and the wings haven’t fallen off… Time to
move on.

Andy

Strike action is the very last resort and in my experience it has come about because of the stupidity and crass ignorance of the company management.

Or in this case, because of the stupidity and crass ignorance of the union and cabin crew who voted for a strike! 😡

At the root of this strike is something I’ve been banging on about for months, maybe even years. The airline industry is nolonger as nice a place to work as it was a decade or more ago – pay rates have reduced, hours have got longer, terms and conditions have eroded… Why…?

Much of this is ultimately down to the dive to the bottom as far as fares are concerned. The great unwashed travelling public have been offered lower fares (initially by the low-fare sector, but also by long-haul carriers with much a lower cost base like Emirates) and want to keep paying lower fares. The likes of BA have to compete to some degree – its all very well saying BA makes most of its money from the front of the bus, but it still has to get a reasonable return from the back too. BA therefore has no choice but to cut costs, and thus now this last bastion of the well-paid, nice Ts&Cs cabin crew, is under threat.

Don’t get me wrong – I have a lot of sympathy for any employee who is subjected to the sorts of pay cuts and Ts&Cs changes that BA cabin crew are in for. But unfortuantely we live in the real world, and if passengers want low fares – and will go elsewhere if they can’t get them from BA – then costs have to be taken out right across the business. And operationally, the BA crews are really on a hiding to nothing, because the flights are so over-crewed (compared to the legal minimum) and their conditions so favourable (again compared legal minimums for things like rest, etc), that maintaining the business as it is has become unsustainable. In this economic climate, management doing anything less that taking significant costs out of the business risks the total failure of the business.

Whilst this strike is dangerous for the airline and a stupid move on the part of the union and cabin crew, all of those would-be passengers whinging about their wrecked holidays might want to consider that if they paid a fair rate for their tickets, this might not be happening. A random sampling of BA fares reveals the cheapest LHR-CDG is £140 of which £85 is taxes and fees, and LHR-LAX £450 of which £237.30 is taxes and charges. Sorry, but you can’t run an airline like BA (with all of its overheads and high cost base) whilst only charging a base fare of £55 return to Paris or £212 to LA. So either the fares have to go up, or the cost base has to come down – there is no long term solution without one of these two things happening. Clearly most passengers want – expect – low fares and will go for lower fares rather than pay a premium to fly on a particular airline (BA in this case), so the management at BA are well aware that the cost base coming down it has to be.

There will be no winners here… Ultimately, BA cabin crew’s Ts&Cs and pay scales are so out of whack with the rest of the industry they will have to change, strike or no strike. Leaving aside the huge loss BA will make during the strike (no revenue in, all tickets refunded), BA will already losing yet more money because of this threatened strike – no one at all will be booking flights to travel between 22nd December and 4th January, at present few people in their right minds will be booking BA for later in January in case further strikes take place, and already BA is generating a lack of good will amongst passengers who will be affected by the strike who may never book BA again. All of this, of course, makes things worse for both sides. BA cabin crew have got to wake up and realise that the business is at stake – and realise that the days of them being far better paid and on far better conditions than most others in the industry are over. There may be a part-way-house – probably nearer the management’s position than the union’s – but that will be arrived at by negotiation and an acceptance that things are different now, not by striking.

Andy

Chicago O’Hare and Dallas Fort Worth have seven runways each

Interestingly, only NOTAM’d closed until 09/12/09 at 1130 (estimated)

Q) EGTT/QFALC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5222N00129W005
B) FROM: 09/12/08 11:30C) TO: 09/12/09 11:30 EST
E) AD CLOSED

Andy