PiB,
You do seem to enjoy giving the merry-go-round one more kick, don't you?
Let's take your latest rejoinder - fuel hedging. Well, for starters despite you bandying around headline figures, it's not a device for creating profit for the company, it's there to smooth out the highs and lows of the price of a commodity that we, in the west, are beholden to purchase at prices dictated by artificially defined OPEC production levels. A choice they actively make, rather than simply sucking as much out of the ground as the wells will bear. If you read the recent forum webchats in the airline you'll note that over the last few years we've done awfully well overall and are ahead of the spot price in general terms despite that not being the raison d'etre of the department. Got anything to back up your assertion that we're pouring money overboard on fuel hedging? Or is it merely another crowd-pleaser that you love to wave around without backup? After all, it wouldn't play well on CF if you didn't claim absolute knowledge of all BA accounting and your inalienable right to be better at running the company than the board would it?
Who knows, maybe you can introduce the fines issue to the table again. After all they were accounted for in a previous year's set of accounts but it doesn't stop the faithful recounting the mantra again and again as if, without them, we'd have made another year of record profits. Perhaps we could hide half of last years profits, move them over to this year and be profitable again. You may think that glib, but it borders on as asinine as many of your assertions.
Yet again you ignore the pleas of the members here to bring some decent, debatable facts to the table. Is it any wonder, therefore that you are given scant regard? Perhaps, if you were to use your considerable eloquence in engaging those who doubt you in debate, you might win some people over. Certainly, you'd have a great deal more respect if, finally, you ended in disagreement having carried yourself in such a manner. I've thought a great deal about this next statement and, having read your assertion about BASSA members being rock solid behind their union - it's often because the "bullying", "name and shame" (words used by the web warriors on your oh-so-clever forum) attitude of the most vociferous stops the moderates from even bothering to engage. Frankly, and I apologise in advance if this doesn't pass the moderators' scalpel, it's a self-congratulatory, borderline circle-jerk over there where, if anyone dares to air an opinion that isn't in line with the perceived orthodoxy, they're not met with considered, if passionate, debate. They're simply called a twunt (oh, how very clever, take 2 swear words and pretend that by their amalgamation, they lose their vitriol) and threatened with shunning, or worse, physical violence.
As ever, despite your fine rhetoric, you singularly fail to advance the debate. Please come back with facts, figures (verifiable) and a calm head and convince me of the rightness of your case.
Finally, derogating the moderators because you are culled for not playing by the rules of a forum you choose to engage on is simply not on. If you feel so very strongly that you are maligned in this environment, your choice is to leave. Just as your colleagues exhort the exiling of the non-believers over the road. Sad truth is there's a medium for debate and enlightenment here - why, when it's clear you can construct a lucid and fine sentence, will you not bring that to the argument?
MrB
PS. For the individuals in another place who think that BA CC invented the Twunt word and were so delighted in the cleverness of their colleagues, may I burst your collective bubble and direct you to urbandictionary which posits the origin some 9-10 yrs ago. Nothing new in the world.
PPS. FlapsForty has some idea of my identity and I have no trouble saying anything I've just said here face to face or under my own name. Mods, you've a thankless task. So thank you.
