Maybe - but 'past performance is no guarantee' either...
If BA had a poor Industrial Relations history then that is part of the mix. However, the onus is also on the union to avoid pitching up with utterly mental demands that leave the company no other option.
As for Jim McAusland making a 'well informed' plea to the City to unseat Willie - I nearly fell off my chair. There is very little investor sympathy towards any Union (nothing personal) but I think that even my mates can see through a deposition request from a Union that is in dispute with its CEO. It's a cold hard world.
BA pilots are - in general - wonderfully trained and well selected individuals. That is, of course, in part due to a whole bunch of systematic management policies and activity - it doesn't happen by magic. Managers have to agree that it is desirable, spend the money and manage the process. Pilots are a massive part of that but it seems astonishingly arrogant to suggest that BA Pilots are good despite their management.
BA is good because it is a good company (in a rubbish sector, by the way). What is also thunderingly arrogant is the notion that pilots from outside the airline (a pool which BA also draws from) are in some way inferior. What happens when a BA pilot is recruited? Do they walk through a smokey portal like on 'Stars in Their Eyes' to emerge as some form of Sky God? I think not - they benefit from training and environment that is supported by - guess who - British Airways PLC, not BALPA (although they appear to have a valuable contribution to training a technical).
I suspect that OpenSkies will take a very similar approach - that they will select, hire and fire in a very similar way and that it will be successful. They will have a hard time - it's a tough sector, and getting tougher - but I do not think that they are the industry-screwing force that BALPA claim... ...some airlines are asking pilots to PAY to be on the aircraft. Are OpenSkies doing that? Apparently not. Some airlines pay less than OpenSkies (quite a few looking at the figures here) so where did all of this b*****it and vitrol come from? BA, I suppose - no wonder they want a clean start.