Carnage, you are right in saying that LHR EF crew are not working to their most efficient and I don't think anyone realistically is going to dispute that.
Rightly or wrongly, but understandable if you are eurofleet cabin crew, the system is set up that way to protect the cabin crews terms and conditions.
Now in any industry, be it an airline, bank, insurance company or refuse collection, you are not going to put your conditions in the line of fire. OK, maybe if the company was going down the road of Aer Lingus you would think maybe it's time to change. But I guess when you are at the top of the profitability league in your industry you can afford to hang out a little longer.
Nobody disputes that when T5 opens that things won't change. It's reaching a reasonable compromise that is important.
I really think your comments about reading newspapers are unfair. Also 7 cabin crew on a A321 for a CDG.
AF are required to have 8 CC on their A321 when on a sector under 1hr20min.
I realise that it seems ridiculous to have 7 crew on an aircraft while there is no catering onboard. But add 49 Club Passengers into the equation with a full meal service, as well as 'down the back' full, also with a sandwich/drink service, then I would love to see anyone sitting in the galley reading the paper.
I think it is a little bit like saying to you guys up front: 'don't read your paper, just look at your instruments'. Even though there is nothing really to look at. You get my point? On a flight with 7 CC and no catering (or just tea and coffee) it would have pointless to have 7 cabin crew wondering up and down the cabin or fiddling with in the galley trying to look busy. Especially on the longer routes.
There is also another issue here. The catering dispute is lowering moral. Crew are literally fed up with having to apologise for there being no catering.
We feel ridiculous saying to a Club Passenger in the process of ripping our head off "yes, I know this flight is two hours long, and you paid a full fare Club ticket, and the 'dispute' happened three months ago, and we don't have any food or even bottled water to give you. And yes, we are running an hour late".
This isn't on the odd occasion, it is every single flight (especially the bands 2/3) to every second passenger on that flight.
Reckon we will ever see a hotline ticket that our ground and ramp collegues (some of who walked out on th ejob a couple months ago) received during the last debacle?