The idea that the increases in costs to be saved from the IFCE budget are due to delays in reaching an agreement doesn't quite add up.
2 months ago the original ask was to save £82m from IFCE budget (£568m) which was about 14%
At the same point Flight Ops had a target of saving £13m from their budget (£445) which was 2.9%
Both those targets have been increased. Now Flight Ops is to cut £38.5m which is 8.6% and IFCE £210m which is 37%.
There seems to have been a similar rate of increase applied to the 2 departments.
I am actually a little relieved by this...not because of some inapproriate and foolish notion about fairness....but because I was concerned that the whole intention of the LT was to force us to fail. After all, every time BASSA reached their asking figure, they increased it. Seemed strange, but perhaps that is the way business is done.
As for the accusation that our negotiaition has failed because of inadequate effort or unethical bias in the part of the BASSA reps...I disagree. The simple fact that they had to negotiate a cut 4 times the size of the BALPA negotiations is sufficient explanation for me. The larger the cut, the more difficult the task.
Anyway, now I have read the threads on this topic (took a while, but luckily I almost never go to work - I'm BA cc and we sit around wondering what luxury to buy with our inflated wages that might fill some of our excessive time off). I feel I have a much better understanding of the whole situation. As the FO said to me, the other week...I'm sick of being such a terrible burden to WW and I'm going to send him an immediate apology!
I shall now do likewise. Thank you for putting me right.