Originally Posted by
Raffles
BA's problem, fundamentally, is not their fault. Its long history, and the mergers that put it together, have brought together a large number of people under different contracts and conditions, most of which were drawn up in a different time.
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Unfortunately for BA, there are now large numbers of new airlines in the UK (VS, EZ, FR etc etc) who hired their staff in different economic times and do not have massive pension liabilities or staff on contracts with overtly-generous (by current norms) pay schemes or perks. And, until their is a massive movement towards those levels, the company will continue to struggle. No-one likes it, but there it is.
I suspect there is another twist on this tale which stems from BA's public ownership and its position as the flag carrier - BA sometimes feels like it's not quite private yet not quite state owned.
There are people in this forum who still today treat this listed company as somehow symbolising England (yes, I do mean England not the UK) much more than Virgin or BMI, witness all the noise about the tail designs and questions in the house about the T5 opening.
Similarly from some of the public utterances, I get the sense a few in the union are confused by the previous ownership and they subconciously expect final salary pensions & unlimited job security, just like any other public sector employee.