Judge Whyte

"..the only thing a reasonable man gets is a reputation for being a reasonable man..." Willie Walshe

757operator

I'm sympathetic to the cause, but answer me these please:

To generate your pension at current levels, you will need a pension pot of around £3 million. Will you have actually produced that amount of wealth in your working life, in addition to what you've taken as salary and benefits?

If you haven't, then your retirement is being subsidised by someone else, ie other employees, shareholders, etc. Is that fair and reasonable?

If you want to improve your creation of wealth, you have to get the ticket prices up. BA then becomes uncompetitive and you lose planes and jobs.

It's straight economics, and something somewhere has to give in all this lot. Obviously you don't want it to be your pension - so what would you like it to be?

miche2

But if Mr Willie is set in his plans, how will any strike achieve anything apart from more money aches? I think the pilots and cabin crews have a difficult one here and will have to accept Willie's ways.

beaver eager

What a load of rot 757operator!

I'm not being subsidised by anyone. BA agreed to pay me that when I joined and will have allowed for it in their business plan. Investors can make their own choice about whether the business plan is a good one.

As for subsidising shareholders, I assume then that you will be offering a wage cut to help the poor luvvies that own your company? What's the difference?

Pension is nothing more than deferred pay. Taking half of my pension is effectively giving me a wage cut and as far as I'm concerned, the T&Cs in BA are at rock bottom and the only way is up!

Different groups of workers get different deals depending on the supply of those qualified/willing to undertake the work in question, there is no subsidy involved (unless you count those who have their shifts covered by colleagues whilst they attend their painting and decorating jobs).

Human Factor

757 operator,

To generate a pension at current levels, based upon retiring as a Captain after 30 years service, you need a pension pot of around £1.7 million, not £3 million, just under the government's new pension cap. BA shouldn't have promised it if they couldn't afford it. However, if you look at www.bacanaffordtopay.com, which uses BA's own figures, they can afford it. They would just prefer not to pay.

Whilst Pilots make up only 7% of the members of NAPS and they represent 27% of the schemes liabilities, it should not be forgotten that Pilot contributions to NAPS represent 28.2% of the total inflows to NAPS. Who's being subsidised by whom?

easyprison

Whilst I sympathise with the BA crews going on strike just isn't going to work.
Over the last few years and especially last year, the Gate Gourmet strike damaged BA's reputation, but it's been strong enough to take the hits and stand back up. If the Pilots then the cabin crew...then the engineers all go on strike then I’m afraid things will really go tits up. The Pilots get what they want the cabin crew will think they can get what they want same with the engineers. The BA rep will be in tatters.
The new joiners in BA have signed onto a crap pension scheme- do you expect to see them on the picket lines after the senior guys stood back and watched the new joiners retirement hope being thrown down the drain? As more join the old guard will get weaker.
Walsh isn't a push over, he won't sit at home counting the piggy bank trying to find extra to put in pension funds; he'll be working on some new business plans.
Good Luck....us in easy will be watching, maybe from the picket lines at Luton!

Jet A1

Just you boys remember the Aer Lingus carry-on -- he locked them boys out when they went out -- Willie Won !!!!

Airbus Unplugged

Mr 757, I save this company's sullied reputation out of the gutter every working day. If they have to invest £3m, £30m, £300m I couldn't give a flying $%^&.
They owe me every flipping penny, every flipping day, they owe me big time.

Super Stall

The defeatist attitude of some of the posters on this thread (the majority non BA) beggars belief, but does go a long way to explaining the long term decline of pilots terms and conditions.

We do not have to accept changes just because Willie says so, BA 'the most profitable airline in the world' for two years running can afford to pay.

I suggest some go look in the mirror and then think how they could, with a little backbone, improve there income and lifestyles for both themselves and their families.

overstress

As the thread starter, I'd like to thank the non BA contributors for their thoughts. For those who wish to compare this situation with the GG fiasco, forget it. This is all about pilots who have given the company 20% productivity improvements practically free, being shafted by a management team from the 'flog 'em till they resign' Harvard Business School.

Many of us chose to leave other airline careers to join BA, sacrificing years of seniority. The pension was part of the deal when we joined. We will not stand by and allow Willie Walsh to shaft us. Journalists and City moles, take note.

Seat1APlease

The BA NAPS scheme is worth about ten billion with liabilities of around 12 according to todays radio. If it goes tits up then the employees' pension is about 80% funded with the possibilty of more from the sale of the assets. They are being asked to settle for pensions of up to 40% less than that which they have worked for during the last twenty years. The aircraft would still be there and the slots. WW needs them as much as they need BA.

beaver eager

Jet A1, you're not comparing apples with apples.

Aer Lingus was a company in distress, BA is the most profitable airline in the world and only this week, several brokers have upgraded their forecasts for our shares to 'outperform'.

I do not think Willie's paymasters would be best pleased if what was supposed to 'outperform', suddenly went badly pear shaped because he had gambled and lost, do you?

Superfly

Overstress,

You've hit the nail exactly where the problem is :

I hope you guys in BA and Easy will win your respective fight. It's about time to realise that the fat cats and managers alike enjoy their Yearly bonus thanks to the hard work of the EMPLOYEES within the Industry. It's about time that :

1)Everyone enjoy a fare share of Profits when business is doing good
2)Media and others stop exagerating a largely false picture of doom and gloom of our industry : ie 9/11 hit everybody hard, fuel prices are soaring, competition coming from the east. SARS yesterday Birdflue tomorrow...........
3) Balpa not only defends members in their respective companies but also LOBBY on MP's and government members to have bankrupt US airlines stay where they should be --> on the tarmack.

Big Tudor

Strikes can be won and lost on public opinion. If you can win the sympathy of the general (as well as BA travelling) public then a strike could have some effect. Unfortunately the publics' perception of BA pilots is that they are very highly paid and are afforded very good working conditions. "Why are they striking, they're on a good deal anyway"! Whether this perception is justified or not, as long as it holds, there is going to be little or no sympathy from the public.

757operator

Human Factor,
Sorry, only £1.7m then - but if I go out to get a BA-style index-linked pension on the open market it costs £3m because the index-linked bit is so high risk to the pension provider. A period of high inflation, low returns and increased longevity could change 1.7m into £3m even within the BA scheme.

On the subject of creating wealth, some pilots retiring now spent the 1970s on Shuttle standby, some of the 1980s as stewards and didn't get commands till the late 1990s, yet they draw a final salary pension - just when have they created much wealth?

beaver eager
Yes, you will be getting a effective wage cut - because of your pension arrangements, you are currently uncompetitive, that's the whole point.

Airbus Unplugged
You amaze me - in your position, how can you be so resentful? Rightly or wrongly, 99% of pilots outside BA want your job. Why not leave and go and be happy somewhere else?

Super Stall
Not defeatest, just realistic. The pilot market is being driven ever cheaper and cheaper, I don't like it any more than you do but it's happening and it appears unstoppable. New joiners from around the world will accept anything to go flying. You will still have a great deal no matter what they do to your pension.

Superfly

Who cares about public sympathy. London Underground train drivers go on strike every month. I'm not sure that is very popular among the general public. Yet they get away with and seem to get what they want

beaver eager

Actually 757operator, I'm not uncompetetive... I'm benchmarked. Paid the right amount and more productive than many of those I'm benchmarked against.

Human Factor

If the pension goes, they're welcome to it.

overstress

That may be so (the perception bit!) but I think after the efforts of a certain Robert Maxwell the British public is very sensitive to the thought of pensions being eroded, regardless of the affected group.

The current UK Govt with Robber Brown and Bleater Blair has much to answer for. Pensions are in the public eye. We will fight this battle as hard as we need to.

Well, 757-op, the old chestnuts are being trotted out so early in this thread. Many of us were 757 operators in other companies and joined BA for the pension. The whole point about our industry is that the seniority system means we just cannot up sticks and go somewhere else - we've done that already to get into BA.

Some facts: BA has sufficient cash inflows to pay off the pensions deficit (over £1.2 billion per year)

BAs cash reserve is sufficient to pay of the pensions deficit in one go.

BAs employee costs (including pension contributions) as a percentage of turnover are lower than Lufthansa, Air France/KLM, Northwest, American and United Airlines.

M.Mouse

My BA NAPS pension is not index linked.

Shuttle back up was indeed a disgrace but was open only to the senior few, pilots working as stewards was relatively short lived, the issue of command is irrelevant. The FSS pension IS part of my remuneration package, BA touch it at their peril.

Touching my pension will not make us competitive. BA makes money despite itself and its management.

Have to agree there.


By the way I have relatively few years to go but I WILL strike over the issue. Funny how it is overlooked that to get around Robber Brown's pension CAP the last BA remuneration report declared that senior management are to receive bonuses paid in shares of between 150 and 200%. And they want my pension!

Times have changed in BA I used to work around 450 hours a year in the 80s. This past 12 months I have done over 800.

Touch my pension and I will go on strike, probably the only issue over which I would.