Short answer - No.
If say BA were providing ground services to other airlines at LHR, then yes there could have been but they don’t, so no is the answer to that. I believe even IB will be moving away from using BA for their ground related activities at LHR soon, if they haven’t already.

Good (but scary!) to know it can last that long.

How long have individual strikes tended to last, eg similar to train/tube where it is one or two days here and there? Or are we looking at several days back to back (eg a week at a time).

Possibly stupid question here, just can’t remember how it’s worked in the past.

Saw this on Twitter - not surprised!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...07d566424d.png

So… our early morning LHR-ARN BA776 in a few weeks’ time has now been cancelled as I suspected it might be! Should I take a refund or rebook for the previous night? I have the Norwegian backup flight but I’d like the BA tier points and the easier trip to LHR rather than LGW. I suspect it’s a good idea to rebook rather than take a refund, and just in case to choose a BA flight for earlier on the previous day so I could get the later LGW-ARN on Norwegian if everything becomes really messed up? What do people think?

Extra info: we’re only going to ARN to pick up the Finnair flight ARN-JFK which is booked on an AA code (001 ticket). I assume there’s no chance that BA would be open to changing/combining the whole thing to LHR-JFK instead of {LHR-ARN(BA) followed by ARN-JFK(marketed by AA, operated by AY)} since the second ticket is separate?

Hotels in ARN seem quite cheap if it’s necessary, just a bit more hassle than ideally I wanted.

Flying LHR to SFO on July 14- can I safely assume now in the clear since it’s 14 days out and no dates announced?

Yes 👍🏻

Isn’t there still a (albeit remote) chance that the 14 day notice period could be waived by both sides?

Not suggesting this will happen or to cause more worry/confusion but until the strike dates are actually announced we don’t know anything with 100% certainty(?)

Do you think, even for just one second, that BA would agree to waive the notice period for a strike, a strike that would seriously affect its operations with all the expensive repercussions therefrom? I think we can safely say that we will have at least 14 days notice of any strike.

Hopefully there will be no strike and the parties can reach an agreement.

I would have just thought that a strike during the UK state school holidays would be more damaging than a strike prior (15-17 Jul) - clearly neither is ideal and hopefully it never materialises…

I think it's far more revealing that the Unions and BA are saying very little at this stage.

Do you have any thoughts why this is?

it is weird there is NO gossip let alone statements. i hope all ground crew get every cent they are entitled to

Hopefully the silence indicates the parties are negotiating 🤞🏻

However much BA might like to play hard here, they simply cannot afford to IMHO. The court of public opinion is firmly on the employee side and the public’s current perception of BA is that it is in chaos of it’s own making.

View from the West Side of the Pond: also a Semi Proud Union Member (Our Union Management has some explaining to do in this years union election)

Depending on whether or not, and/or how long the strike goes on my guess is that Public Opinion will bounce back and forth for a week or so between Management and the Unions. After that there will be a fairly long period of both sides being blamed for the problems caused to the innocent bystanders by the Public and both sides will be joint Big Losers. There are plenty of historical examples of unions destroying a company and then the membership is then considerably worse off.

I completely sympathize with the unions on this but there are better ways to deal with this than a long walkout. Work to Rule has been known to make Company Management rethink things and the Union Management should be reminding their members that if the Company away goes so will the jobs. We've had a couple of instances over here where the local union has actually taken the attitude that "We need to provide the best quality" and drags the national union and the company along with them. The best outcome for all concerned.

But this is not one of the usual industrial disputes. BA reduced staff dramatically during Covid but also reduced the salaries of staff it retained after firing and rehiring them at lower salaries. Now demand is up, BA cannot get enough staff and has restored the higher salaries of management but not these employees. At the same time due to staff shortages, these employees are being asked to work extra days and longer shifts. Initially, the airline refused to even listen to them. In the meantime, inflation has jumped to 10% meaning that even if their previous salaries are restored, they will still be worse off.

Tafflyer

I agree with what you're saying. We have a huge issue in my union about pay that we should have had been paid, but the government doesn't want to pay us. It was a COVID thing where we were restricted to our ships and the government and and Navy people where heading off their ships for liberty on the same pier. This is not going to be good for several of our officials this year.

If BA management got their money, then the frontline people should as well. I might suggest that since Mr Doyle and the rest of the management team are generally not subject to the Hours of Service rules they should be pulling shifts on the line dealing with the problems caused by their poor decision making. Also the Union management should be pulling a few shifts as well since they obviously dropped the ball as well

Encouraging noises reported by the BBC today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62076602

I hope so, flying on a long haul work trip in just over 2 weeks...

Sky News says strikes suspended after better offer. Well thats good news.

Here are the important bits:
https://news.sky.com/story/british-a...-says-12647345

If only I were a betting man lol…

Some people might argue that if there is a reduction in flights for the next few months at least, then would there be a need for all these staff on potentially higher wages?

You could argue that but the whole reason for the cancellations is a lack of staff. A staff body the airline is desperate to hold onto as loosing them would plunge even more flights into the cancellation chasm.

It was a disgraceful and inept handling of pay, and for probably the first time in my life actually (mentally) supported strike action. It has been a shameful action by BA.

Then I guess you have never been in a position where you are being screwed by a company?

Safe to say that this fresh pay offer - reported as ‘vastly improved’ albeit no specifics as yet - would never have come about without the prospect of imminent industrial action. Even the cost-cutting exec management must have woken up and realised just how damaging a series of strikes would prove to be within an already highly-fragile operation.

Here’s hoping that staff are as satisfied as their Unions appear to be, and that the vote itself reflects this.

The cabin crew Union is awaiting the details of this deal before they make their move.

"Some people", and BA, should have learned from the events of the past few months that fire-now rehire-later is not very workable in the aviation business at the moment. BA appear to have acted on this knowledge, but "some people" still need to absorb that lesson.

Looking at this from another angle, it is hard to justify hiring staff when a recession appears to be round the corner. That would damage demand and potentially leave BA with staff they could not afford in 6-12 months time. That is still no defence for not reinstating the 10% pay cut for the time being though.

Well even during the last recession, we didn’t see the massive cut to demand caused by the pandemic. A recession previously never made travel illegal and the last one showed how much disposable income and liquidity was still available. People will still travel and given how many are leaving at present, there is still a requirement for the time being. If it’s a particularly deep recession I can see a freeze indeed.

When the prospect of a strike ballot for check in staff was first mentioned I thought it was said that cabin crew had already reached an agreement with BA on a similar issue?

Ground staff took a 10% cut and cabin crew took 15%, if ground staff have had there 10% returned or perhaps even more cabin crew will expect the same.

And quite rightly so.

Yes, I was shocked that Cabin Crew were said to have accepted a lesser offer. Is that not true, or do Cabin Crew want a bigger bite of the cherry now others got a better settlement?

I’m guessing they want the 15% returned plus the same percentage of any increase that the ground staff receive.

First step: Keep the staff happy.
Second step: Keep the customer happy.

You can't keep the customer happy if employees they interact with are pissed off (or non-existent).

Hearing very positive news about pay increases for ground and cabin crew, details later today.

I appreciate your ethical support, but I'm not sure the logic of staffing levels and recessions works out as you think.
Leisure travel demand is through the roof. Those who could easily afford it and have not been doing for two years have cash to burn even in an economic downturn. But more important than that seems to be the recent ramping up of business travel. A downturn often means people try harder to get their business, that often means more in person visits not less. If every $ spent on travel for staff increases overall revenue $1.5 then you can still see the logic for companies budgeting their travel. It's not the same as production costs, transport costs for goods etc which are costs without any return.
Sure things might not work out that way, but if as an airline are not in a position to take advantage of it if they do, then you have really shot yourself in the foot.
I don't ascribe any altruism to BA, I just think they have to make a reasonable move in this case to protect their position.

Been screwed a few times by the RAF, but then UK Mil doesn't have Trade Unions! You learn to live with it, or quit! :D