corporate-wage-slave

At the moment approximately 5% of the UK currently has COVID, which means they should be off work for a minimum of 5 days, that's on ONS figures. This is in additional to usual sickness levels, and broadly speaking sickness levels in government and the private sector are running around twice the usual levels. NHS staff sickness levels at this time year is usually 4%, and at the moment it's just under 9%. And the nature of COVID varies, so whole groups of people fall sick one after the other, so there's a bunching effect. I suspect it's slightly less visible because when schools were badly affected - that has now eased - the ramifications would go far and wide due to child care implications. That aspect has at least improved.

abraxias

So we have a quandary - do BA publish a summer schedule predicated on sickness levels being x% and hoping they don't exceed it and have to cancel thus creating negative goodwill with passengers? Or do they play it safe and cut back routes giving themselves plenty of headroom, but obviously then removing opportunities for income generation.

I have a fear that the summer holidays could be an absolute car crash for BA if things go even mildly more wrong than they are doing now.

abraxias

(I realise the schedule is already published per se, I mean should they change it sooner rather than later).

makin'miles

I suspect this is BA’s biggest issue: the Great Resignation. They pay their cabin crew starvation wages, no one sticks around, so it’s no surprise at all they’ve run into issues. They just don’t have the staff.

Strikes me they’d be better off to remove a chunk of the schedule through summer right now - and make best efforts to actually operate it reliably. If that means a 20% cut to short haul, so be it. I’d rather get a cancellation for a July booking now than two weeks out when I have far fewer reasonable options.

Globaliser

You're conflating two different things.

1. Covid still exists all over, and is still a real and significant cause for staff absence in all industries. The main difference from before is that it is not in the headlines. Unfortunately, too many people think that because something is not in the headlines, it doesn't exist. The proposition that "Covid [has] seemingly vanished from the UK" is simply wrong.

2. It may be that other airlines are dealing better with the effects of Covid-related staff absence, resulting in fewer cancellations by those airlines. I don't know, but I think that we can all see that BA is struggling on this score.

scottishpoet

While I don't dispute that it is still there and is having a level of impact, I also believe it is an easy excuse that is being trotted out when its not the main reason for issues

why is it that LH has not been reporting huge delays on baggage handling at FRA because so many handlers have been off sick. As you say it exists everywhere. Was the BA facility at LHR really so close to the bone and why?

konagirl2

I do think that BA's problems in particular come from their management of these circumstances. What BA/HAL are calling "covid-related" staff shortages include both sickness level and staff sacking/recruitment. I reply to these threads when someone suggests that covid is reducing to be clear on the facts. But the reality, as @subject2load talks about in the other thread (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34203279-post10.html), BA Senior Management's made poor decisions to sack staff when furlough ended on a presumption (by what evidence?) that unemployment rates would be high and that people would come back to them. And they have poor contingency planning now things are ramping back up. It was very clear in the public information being disseminated by science and public health communities, including SAGE, that once mandatory mitigation measures were removed, covid rates would balloon, so sickness absence rates would also go up.

I also am astonished at the number of flights being cancelled (or moved by more than EU261 compensation time limits) within 14 days as surely this is a huge financial risk to BA? I agree for perception and brand management it would be far better to truncate the summer schedule now based on modelling of covid case rates with no mitigations in place and what the industry has learnt from its recent problems in recruitment, that this isn't going to be 'fixed' any time soon.

Globaliser

You really need some in-depth industry analysis to work out all of this. It could occupy academics and consultancies for years.

But ISTR that the financial aid given by the UK government to BA was of a different kind and level from that given by the German government to LH, or by the French government to AF. Did this cause BA to cut more broadly and deeply than AF and LH did? I would not be surprised if the answer is yes.

Did BA also cut more broadly and deeply than AF and LH because the pandemic was too good a crisis to be wasted? Again, I would not be surprised if the answer is yes.

Did BA cut too broadly and deeply as a result, so that when travel rebounded faster than expected it was caught short in a way that AF and LH have not been? Once more, I would not be surprised if the answer is yes (although I don't actually know whether and to what extent AF and LH are struggling with similar issues).

There's a separate question of whether BA, faced with evident problems, is managing it well and effectively, or whether there has been too much short-notice reaction to imminent crises and insufficient medium-term thinking. That's the kind of thing that leads to the instability of which the OP complains and many other people have suffered.

But none of this excuses the proposition that Covid has vanished, and that it's merely a mendacious excuse for other failings. It's not.

Kgmm77

I wouldn’t be inclined to over-complicate the analysis. BA was no stranger to operational resilience issues pre-pandemic. It’s operations for the last decade have resembled Just-In-Time manufacturing, with very little buffer for individual parts going wrong without the whole thing coming crashing down (which it did not infrequently for a variety of triggers, be it IT, weather, industrial relations etc.). So whilst other airlines are stretched at present for COVID reasons, they had more in-built resilience capacity and can manage to keep the show running.

scubadu

Ding, ding, ding... we have a winner.

It's just hilarious reading this thread sometimes. People are acting like chaos emanating from BA is something brand new. Let's be real honest; BA has been a hot mess for YEARS, very much prior to the pandemic. The number of threads and posts in the FT BA forum is a running documentation of that fact.

But, as many here love to believe, BA is just "the next CEO away" from being great again. If we can just get rid of the current guy in charge all will be well (LOL)

Regards

scottishpoet

It sounds like we are pretty much in agreement then, the business is overstretched, possibly for multiple reasons.COVID is, in my opinion, a convenient excuse .

Yes I agree COVID has not gone away, I ws not implying that when I asked isit a UK only problem now. Clearly COVID is not only a UK problem but everywhere else has coped.

In terms of ability to cope, LH fly several flights a day here without cancellations. BA struggle sto send one flight a day here, one week recently over 50% of the flights were cancelled

I have suspicions that recent changes around who would need Visas to live and work in the Uk is having a significant impact on the worforce avail to BA too, That is not being called out as readily as COVID is, but the discussion about hiring people in Spain suggests that is having an impact.

I am not looking to set up a discussion on that particular topic, but just using it to reinformce my belief that COVID is easy to hide behind

BGI Runner

Wow, I am a very light traveller compared to many around here but despite trying to get back to flying with BA following a two year break from international travel BA simply don’t wish to take my money!

Tried in February and got stuck in Edinburgh and had to get train back (not storm related, last flight of day cancelled whilst in lounge due to late arriving flight and crew out of time. All other airlines flying perfectly!)

Tried over Easter and cancelled by BA. Rebooked with a very low cost airline I have avoided like the plague in the past. Much cheaper than BA even factoring in full range of added extras for fast track etc, very good flights, friendly cabin crew, on time to the minute! Oh, maybe I should try them again?!!

Just had cancellation come in for flights to Jersey in May half term, cancelled there and back. Unable to change flights online as not ticked; been waiting for BA to ticket for 6 months and last called them on Friday when I was told nothing could be done until 72 hours before flight as wasn’t a “priority”. Oh well cancelled and rebooked on EasyJet as other BA flights with decent timings already sold out in any case so no point spending another hour on the phone to BA. Silver lining, cheaper than BA!

At this rate I can’t think I will ever realistically get back to BA, not for want of trying…

Dave Noble

But you do keep coming back - logic would have suggested to stick with what was working for you , surely?
If others do the same, what incentive is there for BA to need to address the issue

BGI Runner

Good point. But these bookings were all rebooks from earlier covid cancellations. No new bookings in system and with Jersey cancellation I have no live BA bookings in systematic all, first time for many many years. I will be thinking extremely hard about what to do for any future bookings.

HIDDY

I suspect if Covid hadn't appeared on the scene during the restructuring of the airline it would be business as usual. Still get the usual moans from the self-entitled right enough.