BA cancels dozens of flights in advance of strike action

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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

  • MartynSinclair
    Participant

    Whilst the report above suggests short haul flights will be unaffected, does anyone know the position if a short haul which was to be a positioning flight to start an ex – Europe ticket, is cancelled, due to a strike, causing the first part of the ex-Europe long haul to be cancelled – what the position would be.

    I remember several years ago, this was the case with an ex Europe ticket to Milan, the positioning flight was cancelled due to snow but BA then allowed me to use the second ticket out of sequence.


    MarcusGB
    Participant

    Another short sighted step by BA, allowing this very damaging strike to happen, simply because they do not pay their new staff a basic, living wage. In any other Business, it would be clearly a short sighted, arrogant decision, and such poor relations with your staff (a tiny %of them also) a reflection on very poor Management and Directorship.

    BA Senior Management has damaged its brand so badly in the last few years, all self harming.
    It is the Senior management structure, and the “No we are not going to do that” then only for it to happen, that shows the fundamental problem is them, and they should be removed.
    No wonder other European Airlines are increasing load factors, loyalty, profit, taking business from them.


    canucklad
    Participant

    I agree Marcus
    How a supposed premium airline like BA, can get themselves into their current malaise says more about the governess than it does about employee loyalty.
    I predicted on another topic, that BA seemed to be spoiling for a fight. Some might argue that it’s prudent to prepare for every eventuality but focussing on war-war and not the jaw jaw is about as short sighted as a burrowing mole.


    Gin&Tonic
    Participant

    BA decided to offer a new type of contract with less preferable conditions than previously. Lots of people applied and were successful in getting jobs with the new known conditions. Now they want a pay rise to be more in line with the original contracts of other long service employees.
    Some may argue that BA deserves all it gets because of its recruitment and compensation policy, but it didn’t have a shortage of applications for these positions who knew the conditions.
    Sorry my attitude would be if your not happy with the compensation or conditions don’t take that job look for another.


    penfold69
    Participant

    Is this strike not more about the fact they have withdrawn benefits to those on a supposed blacklist who had their benefits removed because of striking previously? They are apparently not reinstating them to those employees. That was my take on the news story.


    AlanOrton1
    Participant

    penfold69 – that was my understanding as well.


    TominScotland
    Participant

    MarcusGB – “No wonder other European Airlines are increasing load factors, loyalty, profit, taking business from them.” You may be correct in this very general claim but is there actually verifiable evidence to support it?


    AnthonyDunn
    Participant

    @Gin&Tonic

    The issue with Mixed Fleet is that BA (see their website) offered T&Cs involving a salary of around £25K whereas the trades union representing the same staff is claiming that, in some instances, some staff are only earning something like £16K and the average earnings are around £21K – and well below the national average whilst being based in the UK’s highest cost area. It is an issue of the company making an offer to its staff to recruit them and then not meeting this once the staff have been recruited. If you are unwilling to believe Unite, then R Ferguson has been revealing about the MF turnover/retention rates which are pretty dire. These indicate that the only focus amongst BA’s senior management is a relentless focus on costs and not on staff continuity and standards of service. Lest you don’t believe RF either, I suggest that you try asking BA cabin crew just what they think about the current regime running the company. Actually, on the basis of some recent flights, these views are widespread amongst the flight deck crew as well. It makes for some very interesting conversations in the galley. What particularly stands out to me is the sense the flight-deck/cabin-crew have that whatever they think or say counts for precisely nothing and it is a case of do as you are told – or else.

    Really, no surprise at all that IAG/BA senior management has managed to produce yet another strike from an extremely disgruntled workforce. There is at least one thing to be said for BA management: at least they don’t go around proclaiming that “their most important asset” is “their staff”…


    MarcusGB
    Participant

    As others have stated on here, may of us know people within the Industry, at quite a high level.
    They in turn know of the experiences of The various Airlines, at many levels, as well as passenger data.

    KLM / Air France (more the former), have the highest load factors for many years, Share price almost tripled, with their end of results from end of 2016. Their routes are incredibly busy from the UK Airports, and London City services up to 5 Embraer’s a day, in almost full capacity demand. They have taken over the route so some Cityjet aircraft run for them, that are being phased out. They are expanding capacity, and financial results on a high overall, Worldwide, as well as Europe.
    Morale is good in KLM, though not without its challenges, staff care about their “KLM Family”

    Flyers of all types, are ditching Airlines that charge for a full service, and semi low cost. BA has been edged towards this. after complete denial by the BA CEO “That won’t happen”! KLM still offer a sandwich, hot and cold drinks and a small bar service on European routes, as indeed on the LCY route of 45 minutes flying. BA will not give anything, but selling food and drink up to 5 hours. Still charging what they used to and KLM do. They are low cost, with their added cramped seating installations also.
    Just as Flyers of Leisure and Business, with Etihad, the same but worse pattern has emerged over the last years with BA.
    They are taking back their market share, not taking new business, and it has to come from somewhere. These days, one Airline clearly suffers as a rersult of the other, especially in Europe.

    As a Director of many Staff in professional areas, i could not ever imagine such poor staff relations within an employer. It is shocking, degrading for the overall Brand and Company, clearly seen and felt in the staff teams, and experiences of those that fly with them. Their Senior Managers are so clearly the cause, in any other Business they would be replaced.

    With eyes and ears from hundreds of people, resonated on here over many years with BA, the pattern is peer enforced. The catalogue of failures, service interruptions in the recent year is atrocious, and they have earned themselves a very poor name overseas. More is about to come.

    Taking all views into account, this is clearly the corroborated, current state of affairs.


    Gin&Tonic
    Participant

    Hi Anthony,if there was a case of short payment in contradiction to the employment terms then the union would have a legal case in progress against BA for breach of contract in tandem with any strike action, but I am not aware of such, but I hope there is one if that’s the case.
    If these contracts were so complex that an individual would struggle to realise the full impact of the real pay they would achieve then I agree with you fully, that’s intentional from the employer to mislead any candidate and needs addressing.
    As for discussing the issue with the employees directly I can’t say I would ever do that, any more than I would expect any of my customers to ask my employees view and opinions on me as an employer and how I was meeting up to the contractual obligations of employment and compensation.
    You make very valid points on the general lack of concern and care for the BA employees, which will only reflect in the product, I believe the overall decline in many service industries is now made more apparent by the individuals who stand out for giving a good service despite the lack of financial incentive from a low based salary. I now rarely approach a retailer with any expectation of a minimum service level, but really appreciate it when someone does give what we now deem a great service. Safe travels.


    stevescoots
    Participant

    not BA but an example of a slippery slope being followed. It’s interesting how the cost cutting mindset works and how some companies accept a drop-in service or staff morale as acceptable payoff for little gain, or possibly no gain at all in real terms.
    A friend of mine works in staff rostering for a well-known legacy carrier in Asia that is seeing its own problems now. Rostering is critical for making sure staff at the right place at the right time. For example, if a flight is late arriving, or departing, or ends up having a gate change. A while back they started to push out the older higher salary long serving staff and bring in younger inexperienced staff to save cost but without investing in new systems that younger staff may be more used to. Think of it as having time served cabbies who learned how to drive a manual car and then bringing staff who only grew up driving automatics without upgrading the fleet. (best analogy I could think of)

    The down side of this is that personnel placement (right time right place) has gone from 98% correct to 70% (not sure how the metrics are calculated). Management say this is acceptable as the labour cost saving target has been reached. The effect is that sudden changes to departures and arrivals particularly during Typhoon season or when airspace capacity gets reduced are left with staff having to run from one side of the airport to the other or planes getting to gate with no-one to meet them, time wasted and time is money. Not only does that hit the morale of the ground staff but also frustrates passengers. But where is the saving? Very little saving in one department wages but added costs elsewhere as staff turnover has increased considerably which then adds additional training costs and inter department friction. On top of that customer complaints about lower ground service levels have increased meaning extra resources tied up in dealing with those.


    K1ngston
    Participant

    A quick question as I have not been following too closely what is happening with the strike. I have my son booked on BA to come to SIN on 15th July for a couple of weeks, do I need to be worried about this, and should I be cutting my losses and trying to get my money back and moving him to SQ??

    He messaged me yesterday and I myself am travelling and have only seen his concern and this thread

    Thanks everyone
    K


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    [quote quote=817133]A quick question as I have not been following too closely what is happening with the strike. I have my son booked on BA to come to SIN on 15th July for a couple of weeks, do I need to be worried about this, and should I be cutting my losses and trying to get my money back and moving him to SQ??

    He messaged me yesterday and I myself am travelling and have only seen his concern and this thread

    Thanks everyone
    K

    [/quote]

    From what I understand, you don’t need to worry, probably the worst that could happen is that the flight will operate with a reduced complement and service will not be as good as normal (LOL).

    Just my personal opinon and if you have concerns and are able to move him, you might prefer the peace of mind from doing that.


    canucklad
    Participant

    Great post stevescoots, and I could probably guess the airline, if my mates grumbles are anything to go by.

    Loved the car analogy, and interestingly your analogy works in reverse too.
    Companies get rid of experienced people and replace them with super-duper computers.
    Only to find that correct decision making also ,and especially at moments of corporate stress rely on gut instinct. Something an inexperienced analyst programming a clever machine, simply doesn’t have.

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