SchmeckFlyer

Possibly because CO has a very large domestic operation, which is far less lucrative than long-haul and international operations. BA, on the other hand, is almost singularly focused on long-haul as its main source of revenue, with some alluding on this board and elsewhere that short-haul operations are merely a feeder for the long-haul network. In the case of CO, I imagine the short-haul/domestic services are just as important for revenue as long-haul and international, but domestic services command much lower prices. Compare flying across the continent (about 5-6 hours) with flying East Coast to Europe; the Atlantic portions are almost always more expensive despite having, what I imagine, are similar costs (i.e. landing fees, fuel etc.).

This might also explain, partially at least, why the US airline industry continues to be in such dire straits and/or why employees have been forced to make larger concessions. It seems silly to compare BA and American airline employees however; BA is a highly profitable company, while many US airlines are struggling just to remain afloat, on the brink of collapse, or hiding from creditors and dumping pension plans onto the government. The two environments are entirely different.

BahrainLad

Interesting titbit on PPRuNe. Apparently, on a LHR-CAI (5 hours) each member of cabin crew has the right to 75 minutes in the bunks, as 'rest' (plus 24 hours in CAI before the next flight, but let's not go into that).

So with 14 on a 747, you've got

14 x 300mins = 4,200 man-minutes at work
14 x 75mins = 1,050 man-minutes at rest.

1050 / 300 mins (total flight time) means that on average, you have 3.5 crew members continuously in the bunks.

So how many crew would you need if no-one took rest? Well, get rid of the ones who are always (on average) in the bunks!

4,200mins (total work) - 1,050mins (total rest) / 300mins (total flight) = 10.5 crew members.

So it would seem that BA could, for the equivalent of asking someone who works 9-5 to work through lunch, drop 3 crew members on a 747 and onboard service levels wouldn't suffer.

No wonder BASSA are worried.

bealine

I have a feeling you could be right! Most of the crew with whom I come into contact are not happy at all with striking - they just view it as a necessity because the managers have pushed them over the edge! Withdrawing labour is a last resort among those dedicated to giving customer service!

BahrainLad

IMHO you are utterly wrong. From watching the footage available on BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6261935.stm - click on "Video and Audio: Reaction from Staff at Heathrow"), plus Channel 4 News, the standing ovation, roars of approval and punching of the air was not orchestrated. The roar could have been Stamford Bridge on a Saturday afternoon!

And remember, that photo in the PDF comes from a BASSA publication...!

Flying Doctor

Saw late last night a clip of when the result of the strike was announced. I have only one thing to say:

This is the most appaling behaviour I have seen and it is a total PR disaster. I have never seen such inappropriate behaviour. Then you expect us to believe how much you are committed to BA as CC etc. Clearly not!!!! Any sympathy for staff at BA evaporated immediately after this.

I am glad that you enjoyed jumping around and waving bits of paper in your hands. One suspects that the next bit of paper for some if not all of you will be a P45 when BA is in dire straits from yet another strike of some form or another.........

I know this will offend and I await the barrage of postests in response and to be told how I don't understand this or that. However, there is no getting away from that dreadful image of highly unprofessional staff. Every other airline will be clapping thier hands at this massive own goal.

PUCCI GALORE

Jon, Let me try and answer your question with my own opinion. It is my own opinion and you welcome to come back and berate me if I am wrong.

For the moment I would hang tight - to some extent - but only a limited extend this may be a shot across the bows. However there is a lot more in play. They will do all that they can to avoid this - that you can guarantee. Howver the next month and the next year are going to be crucial for Mr Walsh. BA has large and active unions and a showdown was always on the cards given that Walsh was recruited from Aer Lingus with a reputation for cost cutting and changing union practices. I understand that he was known as Slasher cutting a third of the staff. He now has to address the pension deficit and sort out the mannig levels prior to the move to T5 in 2008. We must wait to see first whether there is a strike - even though the union now has a mandate to call one and then how solid the movement behind it is. This will test the resolve of everyone. Be in no doubt the we are in a "Either they go or I do" situation. If this strike sticks - Walsh would be out on his neck.

If I were you - I think that I would have a plan B ready just in case. Flights on all competitors aircraft will vanish like morning dew if this becomes reality. Now of course this depends on whether this stirke happens. Well, as you know AA had a strike IN 1993. I recall the President Clinton asked the FAs to go to binding arbtration and Mr Crandall had to back down on his proposal to get rid of 4,000 Flight Attendants. At the moment the feeling within the company is that this is management by imposition and people will be imposed upon just so long and then they say - enough. My gut reaction is that this where we are today. No one wants the strike but like all these things it will get a momentum of its own. My own feeling is that a strike is only as good as the picket line and that manning a picket line in February is not going to appeal terribly. We will see. The other thing is that this is the wrong governement for hard nosed copmpanies to do what they might have done in the eighties and nineties. Margaret Thatcher is long gone and there will be no confrontations with unions. How can they when Labour is funded in large part by them?

I suppose that difference is the BA is making money and most of the US carriers are not. I make this point solely because most of the draconian changes that have occurred with employees of US carriers have been as result of Chapter 11 or the possibility of same. It hit everything - even the provision of crew meals on long international sectors and most importantly the quality of the product. It is unfortunate but it is very hard to convince the rank-and-filers like me to take cuts and squeezes when we watch the level of profits. I know all the arguments but it does nothing for staff morale and this is is the result.

Sorry you did not need or want such a long answer - but my view would be to have a plan B. If the worst happens, I give it a week at the most. The Board will cry enough as the forward bookings and transfers alone will frighten the wits out of them - to say nothing of the uproar from their customers.

As I said these are my opinions alone. Now is as good a time as ever to tell you that I will not be on any picket lines nor indeed will I be working as I have to go into hospital I have now learnt. This will needs be sooner rather than later and as far as I am concerned the sooner the better.

The bad thing from your point of view is that I intend to take a laptop with me and visit every single Forum and write inanities - and who knows finish the TFTG. No I am not having brain surgery!

kpriestnal

Striking, no matter what the justification is, will never be the answer. In the long run everyone looses.

Lets spare a thought for families and couples travelling this half term. Most have probably saved all year for their holidays, booked on package tours and possibly unable to change flights. OK, they may be insured, but a holiday is lost. Cant see the CC getting the sympathy vote if this happens.

We are the lucky few that can change arrangements and flights ahead of this planned disruption.

Lets hope common sense wins

PhilH

I thought you had to have 14 FA's on a 747 because of safety issues, one per exit or something like that? I could be talking Horlicks of course.

I agree with Dave_C's earlier post. If WW's cuts keep going then BA is not an airline I'll want to fly on, so that's why I'm supporting someone trying to stand up to him.

Halo

Thanks for your kind offer. ^ As a party of 5 including an infant I think we will be relying on the PP lounge instead (Holideck?), but would love to have a guinness or 2 with you.

Flying for leisure, at half-term, with a bassinette request - yes mine were booked way back in September. I could have chosen the QF metal but preferred to go with BA.


Whatever the rights and wrongs of the dispute, and there are invariably 2-sides to every story, I just hope for everyone's sake - the passengers, the crew and BA itself - that it can be resolved speedily and without further ado. Sadly not too optimistic on this though.

The Saint

Perhaps you should have "gone into that" before your little aside. Have you even looked at the timetable for CAI flights?

The plane gets in from LHR at between 23.05 and 00.25 (depending on the time of year). It leaves the following morning at between 07.25 and 08.45 (again depending upon the time of year).

Would you like to be flying back with a crew that may have had as little as 3-4hrs sleep?

By comparison, LH have a similar crew roster for CAI. The second daily flight gets in at 18.30. They don't crew out the return flight at 04.15, but crew the 16.05 back the following day.

As for the rest of this homespun back-of-a-fag-packet brilliance, I should imagine that crew rest entitlement is set across the board and will not be calculated for the individual flight. So yes, CAI is probably a great flight to work, but then the crew have to deal with the horrid overnight sectors from North America, Far East, India etc when they will need the rest. It's a safety issue.

BahrainLad

No...which is why I "didn't go into that". The schedule doesn't permit you to have anything less than about 32 hours between operating.

But it still doesn't explain why crew should have 25% of a 5-hour flight in the bunks. Or do you consider sitting around Compass 'reporting' to be work?

Kate_Canuck

Dear PUCCI:

I'm sorry to hear you have to go into the hospital. I hope everything goes well. I'm glad you will continue to offer your very practical advice to those of us trying to cope with the BA strike. I also appreciate your continuing efforts to provide us with thoughtful and balanced insights into what professional and service-oriented crew think about management-union relations and issues.

It's trite to say it, but one of the reasons why BA is in such a pickle is because some of the most vocal members of various groups (shareholders, management, unions, passengers) do not appear to be able to demonstrate that they are capable of understanding the pressures on, needs and interests of other participants. Many people seem to be unable to concede that someone else might have a valid perspective, interest or need that somehow needs to be accommodated in order to reach a resolution. Accordingly, the views they express and the positions they take simply antagonise the others - and no progress can be made toward constructive solutions that meet others' needs.

Your views, on the other hand, do take into account the perspectives, needs and interests of others. Please keep it up.

Globaliser

It's because Rod Eddington decreed that the target operating margin should be 10%, and the entire company's strategy has been geared towards that.

Setting that goal has resulted in some good things happening at BA, on the financial side. A lot of fat has been cut out of the business - although people are divided about how much fat there still is left to take out, where that might be found, and whether it's actually a good idea to run an airline on the leanest possible systems - and the airline is much, much healthier than it was. That is to the long-term benefit of shareholders, staff and customers alike.

However, 10% was (as far as I could tell) a purely arbitrary figure, a nice round number. BA has never achieved that, historically. Major full-service airlines around the world - including those with far lower cost bases, like SQ - don't achieve 10%. 7%-9% seems to be the current range.

But the entire management has been incentivised to deliver 10%. There is a great feeling that they are trying to do this come what may, with no view to the longer-term consequences of their actions. And this is becoming ever more clear as the easy cuts have been made and there is little left to find. So it often looks like management are now doing stupid things just to save the odd 1p here and there - like those blasted white boarding passes.

DL's woes started, IIRC, when they were chasing an equally arbitrary cost-cutting strategy with no eye on what it meant for the passenger or the entire customer experience. It is a great worry that this is the road that BA has now embarked on.But crew are not there just for onboard service. Unlike the 9-5 worker who, if asked to work through lunch, might be knackered come 5 pm, the cabin crew have their most important jobs to do at exactly 5 pm. Witness one AF aircraft at YYZ.

Roger

I decided to keep out of this discussion, potentially escalating to OMNI-esque proportions, until Pucci Galore comes along with her usual half a pound of commonsense - and leaves a personal sting in the tail.

Pucci, we hope that the surgery goes well. This forum (and BA) needs you.

The Saint

Because I expect it will be a product of a calculation that is used across all longhaul operations on the basis of what is regarded as necessary to avoid fatigue.

And yes, ignoring the pejorative language, I do consider that "sitting around Compass" to be work. Staff on standby are there at the direction of the employer. It is quite clearly work.