If you like BA, fly BA. If you don't like BA, don't fly BA. If your firm tells you to fly BA and you don't like it, then complain, or leave, or accept that you're actually not that really bothered, but are probably short of something of real significance to moan about.

Where in my post did in imply it's a massive problem or moan about anything?? I'm stating a my opinion, in my experience, the highly paid BA cabin staff are not as good as competitors, and they your suggestion that "Firstly, if you didn't like it, why didn't you fly with someone else?" is probably not sensible option for most (business) flyers, because the quality of service of peanuts on the flight is not really a factor in choosing an airline for most companies.

But I'll take on board your suggestion…next time I get booked on a BA flight, i'll tell them to ram the job.

Sorry, I should have written "If one doesn't like BA…" Except that most people don't talk like that anymore.

But YOU did seem to be continuing the point that Rio was making when he said:

stood waiting in a sweaty immigration queue whilst the crew marched past on their way to the car waiting to take them to their expensive hotel

Quite what he expected the BA cabin crew to do about the "sweaty immigration queue" I'm not sure.

And I'm not sure how he knew that they were off to an "expensive hotel" (as opposed to the rat hole his bastard employers were sending him to !?) But clearly he resents them for it.

Anyway, you should be pleased that BA will soon be out of business, then maybe your employers will be forced to send you off with a good airline.

The answer to the BA strike

But clearly he resents them for it.

Actually I didn't have a problem with it, particularly I as usually wasn't paying for the tickets, and I like flying BA and would choose them over other carriers as long as they can get me there reliably (which used to be the case but now that they strike a lot it isn't). If the staff were able to treat the company as a no-cost travel agent then good on them. But it's clear that that sort of thing can't continue now that the airline industry has gone from a cosy club of national carriers to the cut-throat business it is today.

The bit about marching through the special crew immigration is a legacy of when cabin crew had to be presented as glamorous and special, but now it's bad PR – they should either hide the special lanes or just queue up like everyone else. And I know they went to expensive hotels – I often stayed in the same ones.

Come home Billy Bird.

If this is allowed to become the norm everywhere, all of us are worse off apart from those who run the business and shareholders. Does that sound like a change for the better?

This is a desperately niaeve view Penny; the world stopped being an 'us and them' game a long time ago. You are a shareholder in almost all of these companies because (I imagine) you have a pension, which is invested in these companies. The better these companies perform financially, the better your pension's going to be.
The world does not owe you a living; your place in the economy, whether it's private or public sector, is not independent of financial markets; you're a cog in the overall machine and the better that machine works, the better your life will be. Over the last decade we've got fat and lazy; people have expected the good times to just carry on rolling along (like house prices for crying out loud). You have to take responsibility for the fact that we've all been getting paid more than we're probably worth and it'a payback time. If you don't like that harsh reality, then you can always go and be a hermit on an island somewhere.

…and the Oscar for 'best supporting tory troll of the thread' goes to…
ahem, if I can just, open, the envelope….
Geetee1972! for his last post! 🙂
Good times? Paid more than we're worth?
Speak for yourself!

I'd like to thank…..

Now, if you cry during your speech, I'll boak! 😕

You are a shareholder in almost all of these companies

No I'm not. But let me tell you, being desperately naive keeps a massive grin on my face almost permanently 😉 I guess I'd rather be the village idiot than the town crier… To be honest, even in situations where someone elses wage directly affects mine I don't worry too much about it. I'm happy with my lot and don't begrudge anyone else theirs.

GeeTee,

Spot on.

They need to recognise that BA will go under unless measures are taken.

If they don't like it, leave. Plenty of cabin crew jobs out there. Not!

In my world (HM Forces) T&Cs are constantly getting eroded, but we crack on. However if it all get too much, then I go. Simples.

They need some bloody minge-wipes.

Penny – do you really not have any other pension provision other than the state one? If you do, then you are an indirect shareholder of any number of very large companies. All the pension companies invest in these companies and more around the world. Your money is directly tied to the fortunes of companies like BA.

I do however like your point about being happy and having a smiling face – that is important and it doesn't have to mean naivety. You must understand I am coming to this thread off the back of a very difficult 7 months having lost my job one month before becoming a father for the first time and have only just gone back to work this week. My wife works for BA and is doing her bit as a pilot by taking a pay cut. I picked myself up and got on with finding a new job rather than burying my head in the sand and blaming everyone else but me. It didn't matter how hard it got – the responsibility for fixing the problem was mine and mine alone.

Geetee, I was (only slightly, hence the smiley) irritated by your earlier post too.
There are people on here (and I'm not saying this is you) who earn more in bonuses than my entire household income and these are often the people who are the most vocal about how workers "should shut up, be thankful they've got a job and take the sh*te ".
It obviously rankles more than a bit, when I hear the talk of house prices, investments, and the good life.

I've flown with BA *a lot* (commuted to Newcastle for a couple of years), and I've never been impressed with the service. Most of the staff are medicore at best.

Frankly the crew should suck it up just like the majority of other employees in the private sector have (e.g. we had 10% redundancies at work). They're going to kill the airline, and then none of them will have a job. There's a fair chance they'll f*ck my holiday up if this carries on, and if they do i'll never fly with the selfish twonks again.

West kipper yep I do understand your comments and my bonuses are commission based for selling consulting services that should improve the quality of leadership in a company and therefore peoples' experiences of work (and a firm's performance)

I love what I do and I chose to do it. That's my point. We all have a choice about what we do. If people want to work in an investment bank and get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds they are welcome to it. That's what their job pays but that's not a job I want to do.

I can handle loosing my job because of the mess we have all got ourselves into. I can handle having to take a 20% cut in pay because that's the reality of the world we now live in. But I'll be as mad as all he'll if my wires employer goes down the drain because a bunch of power crazed ex- communists want to play ideological politics with their naieve members who ought to wake up and smell the coffee.

But isn't this kind of the point, when it comes down to it?.
I think there's lots of areas of work where people would be more tolerant of industrial action, more sympathetic, but dare to upset the great British public on their measly begrudged holiday and all solidarity goes out the window, whether the dispute is right or wrong.

geetee, you're just digging yourself deeper there :wink:, theres no chance I would ever have had the opportunity to be an investment banker, or even have a university education, and equally I'll be f**ked if I take a micron of blame for 'this mess that we've all(?) got ourselves into'.

"Willie Walsh is being strong and firm about what the business needs to continue to run and be profitable thus keeping jobs and paying staff."

What they need in that case is

1)To have not lost quarter of a billion pounds in fines over price fixing
2)To have not hopelessly screwed up their fuel hedging causing costs to spiral
3)To have taken action about 5 years ago to counter falling footfall and reduce overdependance on one market

All of which happened on Walsh's watch, and all of which he failed to do. But now he's "tough on unions", hurrah, for the sake of £10m per annum (the difference between BA's demands and the union's offer)

Mismanagement got BA where they are now. Cabin crew cuts will NOT get them out. The losses they're making dwarf these savings, so the suggestion that cabin crew hold the company's fate in their hands is obvious gibberish- if they'd accepted the original demands without argument, the company would still be making substantial losses. And the cost of the strike is now equivalent of 3 years' worth of savings, not a good economic proposition.

Nicely summed up Northwind.

Union busting? Letter from acedemics in the Guardian.

I think at this point the refusal to meet the union's offer is no longer about the money.

The union were made an offer on condition that they didn't announce strike dates. The union announced dates. The offer was rescinded. For BA to now put this offer back on the table would show capitulation to the union. Interesting that the letter linked above accuses Walsh of trying to hardball the union. It's probably right. But it ignores that fact that the union kicked things off.

I'm sorry, but as someone in the aviation industry who at the moment earns considerably less than even the most junior of BA's cabin crew, and who doesn't get any "perks", I have very little sympathy.

Letter from acedemics in the Guardian

Wow – look at all them professors and Drs and intelligent people and stuff. Must be an important letter. 😆

I do not think this has been handled by the management very well. However the aviation industry is in decline. I have been in it at heathrow for a company I will not name for 15 years now and it is not the same industry in the same way as the post office is not the same monopoly that it was in a pre internet era.

What i find difficult is that the company I work for relies on the airlines to be successful and the recession has hit hard. Our management have made redundancies to help the company survive. I have seen friends be made unemployed and I have seen friends of the management go too. It is something you have to do sometimes. What would happen if the crew met BA's offer? Would it be so hard if there was one less crew on the flight? What BA have proposed is legal and has been proven in a court of law.

I just hope the stance of both sides does not cause my redundancy or that of other companies that require the health of BA to survive.

Very Sad

Letter from acedemics in the Guardian

Signed by 97 "…academics in the field of employment relations…" 🙄

Dear Mr Darling, about those cuts you've now admitted are necessary…

TandemJeremy – Member
Union busting? Letter from acedemics in the Guardian.

I gave up half way through the first paragraph since their conclusion is based on a single statement that is not true.

I saw an interview with a BA trolleydolly on the Beeb this morning who laid out the case, often forgotten in these days of companies being thought of as the board and the shareholders, in which she pointed out that actually, the company is it's staff. People who have worked for there for years and enabled the wealth to be generated, not Willie Walsh who is an opportunist who is there for a couple of years before he dissappears clutching his golden handshake to his bosom.

The fact that she had to appear disguised in both appearance and voice leads me to allow some weight to the argument that Willie Walsh (and by extension, the board of BA) is a bullying ****.

Netdonkey,

I think you are right and the aviation industry is in decline.

One of the reasons for the aviation industry's apparent "success" in recent years has been due to its massive subsidy in the form of untaxed aviation fuel.

We have probably reached peak oil which means that fuel prices may never be stable again and will fluctuate around a much higher price than just a few years ago.

I think that most people instinctively know that cheap flights are just not right, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. The aviation industry has overshot its sustainable level and falling back from an overshoot is bound to be painful.

I think if I were in the aviation industry and saw an opportunity elsewhere I'd take it.