Originally Posted by
FLYissues1
...Makes sense but my original questions asks if there are any BA;AF;KLM,etc staff that can answer the question, so just checking.
Can you confirm this is the policy to date for BA?
Thanks
Emphatically yes.
I'm a former BA employee, I left this year with 12 years' of service. Staff travel works as follows:
- You trigger it at the end of your probation period (6 months)
- You can have basic standby or premium standby; prices are 10% of fare and taxes
- Once you clock 5 years you get a 'freebie' or a 'firm', which is a bit of a misnomer: it's a lower-rate ticket either in Club or First (depending on your grade) that can be confirmed ahead of date, thus allowing you to check-in online and so on (no lounge access). If you reach Band 2 management grade or clock a certain number of years you get a second one.
- You can add your partner/spouse and all your kids up to the age of 24, or two people. You can change nominees every 6 months
- You also have hotlines which, on short-haul, effectively are economy flex flights sold at the price of basic economy. You can change hotlines on the day of departure but the only time I tried doing it I failed so I'll leave it to others more skilled to explain that
- This is what happens when you leave BA:
- If you leave on your terms before you did 15 years, you get nada (my case)
- If you leave BA before 15 years, but on a business scheme (e.g. volunteer redundancy) you do get to keep your staff travel entitlement for a number of years. Some colleagues kept it for 4 years, some for 5, some for a couple. I guess it depends on how good the Union is in negotiationg
- If you leave under whichever case (apart from dismissal) after 15 years you keep your staff travel for a number of years equal to your years of service
- Staff travel also works with priorities. There are a lot of priority codes, and in general the rule is duty travel > 'firm'/'freebie' > premium standby > basic standby. What makes it more complicated is that travel companions travelling on their own have a lower priority, and so do former staff. So you might have a situation where there's one seat and three people: somebody's son, an employee and a former employee. The employee will win over the other two.
- All this, of course, is a perk and is non-contractual.