1Aturnleft

I find it difficult to accept this is an exceptional circumstance for BA. They can avoid all of this by standing down and giving in to union demands. We are talking about reinstating some staff travel benefits and paying a three figure bonus (with-held to those mixed fleet crew who opted to strike last time). A fraction of what it's likely to cost to wet lease 9 QR baby busses for the intended period.

BA are completely in control of this situation and are choosing through sheer pig headedness not to give in to employee demands. I understand the whole 'save face' mentality management are displaying by holding out but I would have more long standing respect in the medium to long term for their ability to run an airline effectively than I do now when they pick fights with those employees on a lower than average wage and then try to wiesel their way around the REAL issue by applying for a technical permission from the CAA in order to effectively ignore their issue.

I don't work for BA but I do hold zero respect for any of their so called leadership team in allowing things to get this far.

BA.MF.CSM

I would just like to put some perspective on this.

Our head of fleet is quoted as stating to put £2,000 on every crew member's pay a year would cost them £8m. The leasing of these aircraft is likely to cost them minimum £15m. How do you think that makes us feel about our worth? How do you think we feel when they are also going to have to pay out up to £100m for the IT fiasco? How do you think we feel when we have had to pedal all the appalling changes that have happened in terms of our customer proposition, only for us to end up at the bottom of the barrel and now having to backpedal on behalf of management and being told to promote all the new investment when interacting with customers.

I for one, am absolutely disgusted with this application to lease QR aircraft, on numerous levels. Our employer clearly views us with absolute comtempt when they are willing to fork out more than double the cost of paying us fairly.

You decide.

Kind regards

BA.MF.CSM

brunos

MF staff might be right or wrong to enter in a series of strikes, but it is BA duty/obligation/responsibility/..., whatever the word, to reduce the inconvenience for its customers. The QR wet lease seems the perfect match for both BA and QR, as these birds/crews are currently idle.

QR crews are generally hard-working and superb, and might contrast with some BA crews. Of course, there is not much service on shorthauls, so that will be less visible.

Tobias-UK

I thought along the same lines when I first read this story. If your figures are correct then this proposed wet-lease arrangement is utter bonkers especially when there is such a simple, cheaper, more agreeable solution. It makes no sense whatever and makes BA look like it is being a bully with a win-at-any-cost attitude. It's as if BA is cutting off its nose to spite its face, very sad.

Flexible preferences

It doesn't surprise me that this interest in leasing QR aircraft to mitigate the disruption of the strike is generating very strong feelings in the MF crew.

There is a wider irony - the strike is about not restoring travel benefits to crew who have exercised their right to strike (I am surprised this is legal btw), however, this very act of holding firm on this may discourage crew members who haven't been on strike yet from taking part in July.

Whichever way you look at it, this isn't looking good for MF. BA are clearly determined to break the strike (and the will to strike).

BA.MF.CSM

This is what BA are putting out as being the state of play. It is not. We voted NO for the whole deal, pay, benefits, sanctions. End of.

Kind regards

BA.MF.CSM

Can I help you

I have heard that it will cost BA around £85 million to lease these aircraft for the whole of the strike period, I'm absolutely disgusted that BA do not value our MF enough to settle this dispute fairly and quickly, our current management are hell bent on bringing BA to its knees.
We have just heard that BA want to close two of our pension schemes, NAPS and BARP, can you imagine how their employees are currently feeling?

alexwuk

Guys, let's put some perspective here. Doric/Dr Peter's are asking less than $1m to lease an *A380* for a month. A320s are significantly less than half that, and Qatar are likely to offer to operate at a loss given their only alternative is to sit idle and make zero revenue.
There is no way this charter is going to cost BA more than £5m per month, and probably it will be significantly less.

Calchas

That's a dry lease with a minimum term of five years. Not quite comparable.

Ldnn1

Yes I suspect if one could get a fully crewed operating A380 for $1m a month there would be quite a few takers!

strichener

There is no shortage of aircraft, only of crew. BA will find it difficult to show that there are no available EU registered aircraft when they are going to have their own fleet on the ground.

Agent69

Perhaps you could start by getting your maths correct?

£15m is a one off cost to defeat Unite, £8m is the minimum annual cost of upping pay by £2k per person per year (which will increase annually as legacy crew retire and are replaced by MF).

As you say, you decide!

surryson

£85m?! Is that a typo? Going on the CAA publication of 9 aircraft then that's roughly £600k per aircraft per day of 16 days of industrial action by my sums! That's absolutely bonkers. It won't even be 10% of what you've been told. That would mean that QR are charging £60k per hour per aircraft (if you assume they operate ~10hrs per aircraft per day).

http://www.globalplanesearch.com/avi...ng_options.htm

Going rate is probably somewhere between £2500 and £6000 per hour id guess by having a quick look around the internet.

BA.MF.CSM

Thanks for your input, I did state it would cost them £8m in a year to put £2k on everyone's pay. I don't think I was saying otherwise?

From reading your other posts, your viewpoint becomes apparent, and that is absolutely yours to own^

Always important to get both sides' input^

Kind regards

BA.MF.CSM

brunos

This 85 million figures makes no sense.

A dry lease for two weeks of a A320 that is not utilized will not cost much. Of course, you have to fly the birds from DOH to LHR and do a lot of paperwork, insurance, etc... But that is still a rather small cost.

Then there is the QR crew cost. But it will in part be covered by the pay saved on striking staff. And QR is currently paying those QR idle staff, so they will be happy. There will be extras such as housing, bonuses and the like. But again the net cost will be nowhere the millions mentioned.