Bellerophon

I've no insight into what BA might be thinking, other than at present they do not appear to want to negotiate an end to this dispute but rather to be set on "winning" it. I'm not sure what "winning" will look like for BA, nor how much revenue and passenger good-will they may be prepared to lose to achieve it, but no doubt time will tell! In the meantime, whilst I sincerely hope to be proved wrong, I suspect more disruption is on the way.


I doubt it - BA are short of pilots at present - but if that were their strategy, then they have chosen a very inefficient way of going about it. If BA had offered voluntary redundancy - on broadly the same terms as they did in 2009 - I reckon they could have paid off around 10 senior captains for every hour this strike has taken place, without any disruption or bad publicity.


One of the few areas where BA has improved over the years is the speed with which they manage to upset new employees. It took them decades to upset me but with many new pilots they now frequently achieve this in a matter of years. I think the real pressure from "restrictive" or "recalcitrant" pilots is coming from the more junior and middle ranking pilots who will, probably, be with BA for many years yet!


Your suggestion that BA might consider using any financial savings made from senior captains retiring early in order to provide improved better pay and benefits to more junior pilots is one of the kindest and most optimistic posts made on this forum and is one worthy of consideration. Sadly, such is the cost-cutting ethos endemic in BA management that I suspect it would be career-ending for any BA manager rash enough to propose it.