The main point, as made above, is that a lot of the allowances are simply salary in disguise. God forbid the taxman ever takes a serious, aggressive, look at it - but it has to happen sooner or later.
The bottom line is that crew (be it cabin or flight - I am the latter) have a total ammount of cash they take home. But for cabin crew, because the basic is so low (for more recent arrivals anyway) the allowances are a very significant part of their income.
Most cabin crew are based in the south east - think of the cost of living versus the basic salary. The bean counters would love to take a bite out of allowances - the knock on effects are obvious:-
1.) People will no longer be able to afford to stay as cabin crew as a serious career.
2.) It'll be a 'do it for a year or two for a laugh' and then get a 'proper' job somewhere else.
3.) A small increase in initial training costs as staff retention drops, but...
4.) A long term decrease in employment costs as all the troublesome issues like pay increments and pensions become irrelevant.
In other words its a win/win scenario for management.
The only question is whether CC unions will let them get away with it. I mostly concur with what Chewy says, except the
Again, assuming you work for BA, you will have and OOF course rostered to you at some point. I remember a quote from the leadership team member we had talk to us: "cabin crew are the jewel in BAs crown". Says it all don't you think?
bit. You surely realise that management will tell you what you want to hear, whilst figuring out how to knife you.
My own OOF day was a steaming pile of excrement, sound bites and platitudes, with the usual, not very subtle 'you lot are costing us to much' message tossed in for good measure - the one constant feature of all recent management briefings, designed to condition us into acceptance of the ongoing assault on T&Cs.
CPB