The comments by Devillish are amongst the most coherent in this thread.
I am sure people feel agrieved when previous assurances are not upheld but in any business, such assurances are only valid if the circumstances remain the same.
In the aviation world today, circumstances are different. Open Skies is just that. Without the feather bedding of the previous bi lateral agreements any assurances are just not possible to deliver.
The open skies policy has forced all the transatlantic airlines to reshape thei businesses, BA has as much if not more to lose by doing nothing.
Open Skies is their response to a political change in the aviation landscape, whether it works or not is something else but they have the absolute right to manage the business as they see fit for the political, legal and economic environment they face.
By doing nothing the future of BA would be grim. The future of BA staff would be grimmer.
This talk of getting the TGWU to take up the cause is just plain stupid. They have not been able to halt the tide of change in other industries.
The world has changed and is changing so rapidly that no one has any idea what the rules are.
I suspect that if the open skies nogotiators from the EU and US had known what was going to happen with oil, the economy (ie credit crunch), then they might not have been so enthusiastic about open skies and the risks it has now brought to the airlines they were hoping to help.
Welcome to the brave new world - at least be grateful you dont work in the UK housebuilding industry where 5000 people lost their jobs last week through no fault of themselves.