First let me say I'm a 'lurker' who has followed this with interest, having a sister who is senior cabin crew.
I am no way connected with Virgin, apart of course from my sister. If you want to flame me please go ahead.
My sister thought it might be a good idea to see, from a passenger point of view, what I feel towards the current situation.
Firstly, I support my sister, and therefore crew, I always will, as I know how hard she and all you guys work.
However, from a passenger point of view we passengers are a fickle lot.
It's easy to say Virgin has lots of money, yes I'm sure it has (whether it's tucked away out of sight or not!), but that money has come from it's passengers, the life blood of the airline. An airline like Virgin is there, after all, to provide transport for passengers to their destinations. Without those passengers there is no airline, simple.
I regularly fly B&S routes (the routes you guys just love to fly lol) and there is increasing competition, some of it attractive, on those routes. I was very tempted to fly with a competitor for my latest trip but my sister talked me round lol.
Now, admittedly, UC is the best in it's field (OK, I'm biased but I really do think that), but the charters are now offering very attractive PE and economy, especially on the B&S routes, more and more previous Virgin customers are trying these new alternatives. What happens if there is a strike? Passengers will remember having their long awaited holidays disrupted or even ruined, and believe me they will switch to the competitor(s) for their next trips.
Where does that leave Virgin? Cutting back of routes and crew? Who knows, but realistically if passengers leave Virgin I'm sure we can all guess what happens to an airline with reduced passenger capacity.
Insurance does not always cover passengers in the event of strikes, a fair number of policies have clauses in them that state they will not cover in the event of strike action. Business passengers are fine, most of them are not paying out of their own pocket, but holiday passengers are the ones who will be hit hardest.
It's easy to take a selfish view, on both sides of the fence, but the thing everyone needs to be careful of is if you do strike, you must be prepared to take the consequences and those consequences might not be what you think you'll achieve at the outset.
I wish you all the best of luck and hope you do get what you want but please don't take it out on the passengers if you don't get it.
Sam