Situations such as these are never helped by sensationalist reporting from the beloved media. I would also say the Unions dont always help themselves in their choice of language. This forum has an incredibly high number of members who spend a huge amount of time on aircraft in general, and those who probably spend more time on them than some of the crew themselves and therefore experience the negatives of frequent travel etc.

Having said that there is a lot to be said for working on an aircraft compared to being a passenger on one. For sometime my partner felt that the levels of tiredness I experienced once home from a trip were over the top and unjustified, this caused numerous arguments. Eventually he joined me on two trips; the first was a 10hr flight westbound which had two nights off downroute. We flew back to the UK and had two days at home. We then flew east for 13hrs and had another two nights off downroute. His attitude changed dramatically after this and I can say arguments are now minimal

I’m not naive to the fact that some crew members, from both sides of the flight deck door, will over indulge downroute and this will have a negative impact on both the quality and quantity of their rest. While reducing rest downroute may seem like a small matter, once combined with the numerous other physoclogial and physiological challenges of the job it becomes a much more important consideration with regards to terms and conditions, especially as each individual can handle these challenges in a different way.

Another area to consider, and has already been highlighted by many on this forum, is that without unions a vast majority of employees in a company such as BA have zero bargaining power. My partner is a senior manager in the financial world, he has taken several new jobs in the last eight years or so and for each of those he was able to negotiate his salary, bonus and leave prior to joining. He’s also given a fair amount of discretion in areas such as travel and can make the policy work in his favour. Obviously this isn’t the case for all and we can’t tar everyone with the same brush.

Views are my own...