In response:
1) Your figures seem correct.
2) BALPA claim that they are doing something about fumes but they'll get better results by working in partnership with other agencies than by banging on the table shouting "WE DEMAND ACTION". I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt a little longer.
3) Of course work practices are different in some companies to Virgin and BA and I think it's unrealistic to expect complete consistency across the industry. BALPA have no leverage with a company except through it's members in that company. If the membership is low how exactly should they force the management to change?
4) I agree.
5) I disagree strongly. Much of the so called evidence for climate change is pure bunkum, especially the nonsense about the temperature of the USA dropping after 9/11 as aircraft were grounded. Why can't the climate change doomsayers explain why it was hot enough to grow grapes in Northern England in Roman times yet they had no aircraft, power stations or internal combustion engines? I expect my union to contest baseless claims and I also want them to give the public a reality check about the relative scale of each part of the problem. No point talking ourselves out of a job if the sacrifice is cancelled out by a new power station opening in China next week.
I really can't agree with your suggestion that BALPA puts the industry first, I just don't se any evidence of that. What I don't want is the association becoming a single issue pressure group with all our funds p*****d up the wall on frivolous lawsuits pursuing oil fumes damages which don't have a hope of succeeding. If we can draw some conclusive, irrefutable links between oil fumes and sickness then I'll be right behind the lawsuits but right now there just doesn't seem to be enough data.