Anti-ice, it’s very easy to say “work at LHR, engineers at LGW, move engineers from LGW to LHR. Problem solved”.
Moving engineers from LGW to LHR would result in them travelling anything from 40 to 90 miles a DAY, on Europe’s busiest motorway just to get to work. Put that together with an archaic shift pattern (7/3/7/4 earlies/lates) over a period of time you’re going to get a lot of fatigued and stressed engineers carrying out maintenance on aeroplanes YOU and YOUR passengers may end up flying on. If anything goes wrong you won’t care because you won’t be around and the tired engineer will be in the dock with no support from the company. Can you see BA saying ‘Yes Your Honour, all our fault, we made him drive 80 miles a day for a year’? Didn’t think so.
The allowances on offer are only available for two years and would result in just about everyone being out of pocket. I’m not talking a few pounds here. I’m not entitled to relocation so if I don’t want to drive I can rent accommodation in the Heathrow area and this will cost me over £3000 for the first two years and then over £5000 for the rest of my working life.
Engineers can’t be compared to flight/cabin crew. We work different shift patterns. Some crew are bussed from LGW to LHR the night before a flight. Stay in a hotel. Start work the next day and are away for up to 7 days. They come back. Stay in a hotel. Then get bussed back to LGW. It’s not quite the same as driving up and down the M25 seven days in a row.
If BA wants to move all their flights from LGW to LHR then fine. But they can’t expect all their engineers to pack up their toolboxes and move just like that.
There comes a time when people have to decided whether their family/health/life comes before their job. Especially if the job isn’t that great (anymore).