The COVID redundancies were down to one man’s (rhymes with baloney) pathological hatred of pilots and willingness to cut his nose off to spite his face in a revenge mission because of the 2019 strike. That POS has exited the building since but his toxic legacy remains because now BA no longer has the reputation it did of being the one safe harbour during a storm and has led directly to debate during conversations like this.
For what it’s worth it appears BA are doing very well indeed out of this crisis at the moment bookings wise as they are picking up many passengers who simply cannot or will not route via the gulf carriers. It will however remain to be seen how that can offset the fuel price increase and its wider impact on disposable income should this last months.