Just seen an interview on Sky news where the Chief Exec of Gate Gourmet was blaming BA virtually 100% for all the disruption.

Did he forget that he started all the problems??

He said that "it was a regular thing for BA every August to walk out".

First of all, the most recent problems with BA have been for 3 separate things.

2003 - Swipe in and out (union opposed) BA management tried to implement... Failed

2004 - EWS engineering system introduced and not tested. Also Staff shortages leading to delays and chaos. (Chaos caused by BA management not forseeing increase in travellers and did not authorise recruitment of new checkin staff until it was too late, leading to staff shortages, this coupled with delays caused major problems

2005 - Catering strike by gate gourmet. This was caused by managment of gate gourmet sacking a large amount of the workforce. It will be VERY difficult to replace the staff as the "average joe" will not be able start work wfor gate gourmet and get an airside pass straight away to go airside to stock up the aircraft as this can take weeks for security checks etc.



The trouble with all these situations are different managers within the comapnies tried to implement different things without consulting their staff and unions, leading to chaos caused by lack of consideration and confusion caused by management trying to introduce working practises that are unsuitable and unreasonable.

Thats because Gate Gourmet were (and are) losing £25million GBP a year and needed to do something drastic.


At the end of the day, its all about money and saving costs which is understandable but......what about the staff.


BA would not employ any staff during 2004 to replace staff that left (or were part of the 13,000 head count reduction that was required) and thats why there was a staff shortage during summer 2004.

It appears that all these problems have been caused by cost cutting crazy managers.



David Siegel, CEO of Gate Gourmet is American. (no offence to our US forum members!) He thinks he can come here and just fire people on the spot like he could in the US and he should realise that he cannot do that here and that unions are stronger here than in the US.

There are employments laws and procedures here that need to be adhered to.

The REAL reason why BA staff are out is because Gate gourmet tried to bring in agency / replacement staff that were not properly trained and the loaders did not want to work under an aircraft or by a truck being driven an operated by someone who did not have sufficient / any training.

This should taken into consideration and noted that the BA staff did walk out unoffically but it was for SAFETY REASONS and not neccesarily in support.

I hope that you all understand and see the real reason why this is happening.

This is why the BA loaders and aircraft movements are out.