copenhagenBA

Excuse me if this has been mentioned by why is BA cancelling 100s of flights daily with sometimes less than 2 weeks notice.... I was affected next week with 3 flight cancellations and its really got me thinking why.. Are Ryanair doing the same?

Its really not good for brand loyalty.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, there are quite a lot of threads on the topic for the last 2 months or so. As for the "why are they doing this?", the summarised answer I would give is that BA have significant staff shortages - both unfilled vacancies and significant levels of staff sickness - that it cannot smoothly operate the ambitious schedule that it originially drew up. There is a particular shortage of staff who work on the apron and originally BA tried to ride it out, but it got so bad that luggage could not be taken off arriving aircraft, which then meant both the aircraft and aircraft crew could not be deployed on the next service, so a relatively small aspect of the jigsaw had a huge impact. More background in the previous threads on the topic, mostly end of March time. Yesterday a statutory instrument went through which slightly eases some of the requirements on new staff. Anyway the cancellations, and squeezing of Booking Classes was intended to reduce demand so that supply could cope. The alternative we have seen already.

sunshinebob

I would say that the cancellations are mostly down to lack of employed staff rather than sickness. Covid is on the backfoot and it's not something BA should continue to hide behind. The real reason there is not enough staff is that BA have not employed enough people to cover the number of flights they have scheduled.

I appreciate its a simple comment to a multifaceted situation and it's not just BA , the airports are equally to blame but I can't see it improving until after the summer break as time is required to train/employ enough staff to cover the shortfall.

ThatT1Feeling

It's an odd feeling though I have to say, I do have quite a few flights booked over the next few weeks and months and I have never previously had an anxiety that there could be a material risk that BA would cancel the flights.

Yes it's happened to me in the past but really not often at all. Now I am thinking about my contingency for every flight I have booked (some are leisure, some business, some with friends for a dads' week away, one's a big family holiday). I almost jumped ship to WizzAir as I can't risk my visit to Cluj next week being disrupted. I'm not a worrier (far from it) but this is starting to take some thinking and planning time.

Bohinjska Bistrica

They let too many people go and the chickens are coming home to roost. That's basically the size of it.

We can only speculate as to why they are stuggling to recruit, but the following are probably factors:

Job security worries, having just seen what's happened over the last two years;

People have left the industry and have no intention of returning;

The unsociable hours involved is off-putting;

Better money elsewhere.

Nephoi

perhaps the package BA is offering is not as appealing as BA thinks it is. Otherwise they would have enough applicants...

Agent69

So is the bottleneck the lack of applicants, or the time needed to train new applicants?

Agent69

The latest ONS survey suggests that over 3m people would have tested positive in England during W/E 16th April. Rates are falling, but hardly at a level that could be described as on the back foot.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ot/22april2022

abraxias

More worryingly, things like staff shortages are not going to vanish overnight so these problems are going to drag on for what could be months. And how will BA pay for all these new staff hires if it keeps cancelling the services that bring money in? Glad I don't have shares in IAG that's for sure.

subject2load

You can probably add to that list : Poor contingency planning

I am firmly of the view that senior management at both LHR and BA were very quick - and perhaps even disingenuous - to criticise Government policy where Covid-related restrictions were concerned ; but were far less focussed in terms of their own responsibility to manage respective labour resources.

As far back as July last year, a major relaxation was announced, removing the need for visitors to England from US and EU to quarantine on arrival. In reporting the “huge and long-awaited boost for airlines and travel companies”, Reuters commented at the time, viz :

“Airlines, such as British Airways, and Britain's biggest airport Heathrow, weighed down by cumulative pandemic losses of $4 billion, welcomed the move but said more was needed if the industry was to recover from the collapse in demand.”

Over subsequent months, ‘more’ was indeed forthcoming, in the shape of further relaxations on travel protocols. BUT …… was the industry calling keenly for those relaxations properly prepared ?

There is of course no doubt that reacting to unprecedented fluctuations in consumer demand for travel caused by Covid-19 have severely tried the skills of countless industry leaders ; but the head honchos at the likes of BA, HAL and UKBF are paid the big bucks to make those calls, and I do feel they have been found asleep at the wheel.

Confus

The current bottleneck is not actually willingness of staff to join, at least not for crew - there’s a backlog of almost a thousand successful applicants. Rather it’s the referencing/vetting process - both internal and external - where there’s a pretty serious delay. Its not just BA’s delay either - if new entrant crew get through the BA internal process they’re having to be deployed to terminal work while waiting for HAL to verify and issue an airside pass.

I don’t know about other frontline areas (e.g. ramp), which could have different challenges. And I rather suspect the bottleneck will soon move from referencing to training, as I doubt they have enough training resource in place.

Whether the new crew will be any good remains to be seen. Anecdotally, word is that they reduced their standards to basically anyone who can submit an application with RTW and pass the height and reach test.

subject2load

My initial reaction to this (rumoured) news of reduced standards was along the lines of Quelle surprise 🙄

But when one thinks more deeply about potential implications for long-suffering BA pax going forward, the picture is not an especially bright one.

Duck1981

I believe check in staff at LGW should get £9.92 per hour. My local Whole Foods pays £10.50. Starting salary for new cabin crew is £16k which end up at roughly £28k including all benefits.

TPJ

Personal experience (based on a small number of flights): FR is fairly reliable. The only time flight we had a short delay was because of ATC.

crazy8534

One thing I have found interesting when speaking to BA staff over the past few months has been how easy many found it to use their customer facing skills, proven ability to be responsible for others, decision making experience etc. to transfer over to health care jobs during the pandemic.

Now of course that is not an easy place to work either but as others have mentioned most of these staff were already used to long hours and shift work and dealing with the great British public. The advantages are a virtually 100% secure occupation and significant opportunities for higher earnings in, for instance, agency work.

It will take a while for BA to catch up with the staff losses for sure.