I've not been a frequent contributor to the thread but read the latest BASSA newsletter with a degree of dry amusement today. Beneath the pictures of Willie Walsh mocked up as a second hand car dealer and with red devil eyes, it has a section which says "what's next" to try to spell out what it thinks are the next moves by BA. Let's consider those for a moment:
Hourly pay
Double nights gone
Reduced rest downroute
Reduced days off at base
Fixed links
Flexible rosters
There and back Sharm el Sheikh at LGW
Ranks and promotion to disappear
Extended range flying with no protective agreements
Linked short-haul and long-haul sectors at LGW (precedent set at LCY)
On virtually every single one of those, all I can say is it's about time BA caught up with what the rest of the industry has been doing for years. There and back Sharm? Shock horror.
No, actually; charter carriers, GB/easyJet and others have been doing it for years. Fixed links? Terrible.
Well, no actually - it means you go into work and fly the flights you're rostered. Linked short and long sectors. Sounds awful.
The reality is that they are moaning about doing LCY-Shannon-JFK in a duty day, which is no longer or worse than an LHR-Istanbul-LHR roundtrip.
On reading that list, it simply reminds you just how uncompetitive BA's current T&Cs are. The union's effort to create a wake-up call to arms has only one purpose - to completely deprive BA cabin crew of any sympathy that they might expect to gain from anyone else. Most of the things which they are presenting as the end of the world have been custom and practice through the remainder of the UK airline industry for a very long time.