Housewife-43. You're absolutely right. It almost certainly will result in alienation of a significant proportion of our customer base. The problem we, as BA pilots, have is that we've endeavoured to resolve this in a peaceful manner with BA. They have shown they have never had any intention to negotiate meaningfully on this subject - their cynical production of a threatened High Court injunction near to the end of the 7 day notification period shows this alone.
The sad truth is we've no option left to ourselves now to protect our current terms and conditions (remember, this is not about us trying to get more than we currently earn) than to invoke industrial action. I don't know one of us who's actively looking forward to this but when your management won't engage then what else do we do?
BA's definition of a peaceful resolution to this is that we lie down, take it and shut up. That's simply not acceptable. Collaterally, the passengers are taking some of the damage of this attitude and for that I can only exhort them to direct their ire at BA, as I know you have done. That you have received no reply from them is of no surprise to me whatsoever. We are an airline of breathtaking arrogance and complacency and I, personally, don't see us lasting in our current form much longer anyway. We're a hollow shell of a brand trading on former glories and relentlessly being exposed for what we are by the middle and far-eastern airlines. I mean, have you seen the 'soft' product we have in First these days? Pathetic in comparison even to the European majors.
MrB
PS I'm not a manager, but I'm sure as hell not proud of who I work for.