Concorde the main issue for cabin crew and concessions is this:
A lot of us are single and have no spouse but instead have a 'nonimated companion' listed on our concessions.
It would be great if we could take our 'travel companion' away on our trips with us. This isn't possible however as a travel companion must be 'accompanied' by the staff member. So even though the staff member is onboard operating the same flight, we can't take our companion with us.
Most other UK airlines such as Virgin and bmi allow you to simply have a number of nominees on your conessions. Could be mum and dad, could be joe bloggs you met down the pub last friday night. They are fixed annually and you can change them once a year. BA's are SO outdated with the old spouse, mum dad bro sister rule.
Darkstar, I agree with you on CAT payments and think it would be great if BA and BASSA could have open forums on how we can all move forward for the common good. For example if CAT payments and the rent and maitenence of the CAT lounge costs BA say £2 million a year, maybe they could say 'OK, we are going to divide £1 and divide it amongst the basic salaries of the short-haul crews. That way, both BA and the crew win. BA saves £1 million and the crew don't lose out entirely. That would be in an ideal world but BA is more likely to take the stance of 'close the CAT lounge, get rid of CAT payments, let the crew lose out and get p*ssed off and save us £2m'.
The threat of strike action always has to be in existence or what is the point of having a union? OK, I don't think anyone would strike over losing a CAT payment, but if BA REALLY decided it was going to take the p*ss and doubled our workload and cut our salaries by 20% I could definitely see a strike happening and being supported by the crew. Of course we would all be hoping that the mere threat of it would be enough to have a reasonable resolution but if not I would be happy to strike. Personally I think BA are a responsible employer and I can't see a scenario like this happening as it would ruin customer, shareholders and lenders confidence in the airline.
Our pay and conditions are much better than a lot of airlines, but still on par or less than the likes of Air France, Iberia, KLM etc. Short-haul crew at Air France get an average of 15 days off per month for example.
I reckon instead we will see yet another 'new contract', the 'even newer' contract with a different allowence system to current.