Jean-Lill,
And there lies the rub! BA
wants to reduce its heavily overstaffed cabins but BASSA are playing hard-ball because, as a union, it can't see past its own snout. And not only are the cabins over-staffed, they are overstaffed with some very expensive cabin crew. Given the perilous state of the world's finances, and in particular the finances of the air travel/freight industry, BA is having one hell of a job convincing the snout-in-the-trough-ers that they have to bite the bullet.
So for well over an hour they had nothing to do
Trust me, there are some (but not all) who are more than happy to keep it that way. They don't seem to understand that when they are on duty they should be
working!