You cannot compare Ryanair or EasyJet to BA as they run under totally different business models hence cost bases. Ryanair and Easy rely on expansion and new routes coupled with a very low cost base. Night stopping Ryanair or Easyjet crew anyone? Very rare.
I think you will find that BA has benchmarked, over the past couple of years, the Cabin Crew, loaders, pilots, ground handlers, managers etc, etc, etc against other legacy, full service LH/SH carriers such as AF/KLM, Virgin, Emirates, Turkish, United, AA, Delta etc. This will have been done for each years business plan to ensure that the managers are aware of where BA's staff costs are heading. That is after all what they are paid to do. BASSA seems to believe that BA has 'snapshot' the market. I find that very hard to believe. Whilst BASSA might not have done its homework, if it had it could well have seen a lot of the BA demands coming a long time ago, the BA management certainly have done theirs. This is why I, personally, fear for the BASSA membership.
Most departments will have adjusted themselves over the period to ensure that BA remains an 'attractive' place to work by offering market rate + 10%.
As BASSA have failed to adequately adjust the market rate of the CC over the past 10-20 years you can probably see where the comparative graph is heading.
Hence the reason for such a drop now.
There is no point in BASSA looking 'over the fence' at other departments. It really is about time that BASSA started looking inward to their own organisation and see that, whilst protecting the top 10% of CC, they have been neglecting the other 90% through inadequate future planning and representation.
If you want pilot wages and pilot T's & C's then go to Oxford and get a licence, reapply from the beginning as a pilot. You might be surprised what the starting wage actually is for a self sponsored pilot! Or indeed quite how difficult it is to get into BA as an 'Ab Initio', trust me you need to be very, very good. If you want to compare managers wages then put yourself on a rolling 12 monthly contract, achieve the performance related targets and, if you achieve above you might get a bonus, if you achieve below, no contract renewal!
BASSA needs to look inward, sort out its own internal failings and start looking after its members with honest open appraisals about what affects CC not what every other Tom, Dick and Harry are doing. Time to leave the playground BASSA and come and join the real world.
There are usually two outcomes, 1. The business goes to the wall and new buyers get the opportunity for a new beginning or 2. Activist shareholders are strong and smart enough (rare occurence) to appoint a new and radical executive team to take the necessary action, which usually begins with getting rid of a great proportion of the management layers.
rmac,
Interestingly that seems to be the general City opinion of why Willie Walsh was brought in, for exactly this purpose. He has already culled a large swath of middle management and now wishes to rationalise the 'front line' which, to this day, is over crewed. He is hard nosed enough to push this all through and, as Openskies demonstrated, has the ability to explore all avenues to push his business plan through.
From friends who work in the City in some major financial institutions BA is, was and remains a good investment opportunity IF the company can reign in and ring fence some of the militant aspects of its core workforce. Without the ability to control disruption caused by external or internal factors then the investment will not come. Hence the deadline to get things done.