My ideas, hope they help.
Plodding along said...
Please could someone outline how crew would prefer to make these savings (if at all) assuming it's not the way BA has imposed.
Well how about this for starters!
Stop the ballot and get around the table to negotiate the following ideas.
Accept that everyone in our company needs to save a lot of money.
Ask for new fleet to be integrated, with current crew.
To achieve this we have to have the same slip patterns, you can’t have half the crew on a night stop with the other half on 2 local nights rest in SFO for example.
Maintain all long range services (over 12.30 hour duty) which involve an 8 hour time change at 2 local nights rest. Give a reduction on all other flights.
This would keep West Coast services inc. PHX/LAS as they are and also protect ALL Far East services. South America, India and MRU would reduce but our services are not daily to most of those,
CPT/JNB trip lengths would decrease, however there is little time change in that part of the world.
Accept the monthly travel payment but negotiate a condition that it is reviewed annually to account for any increase in long range flying. (The downside is that it could also reduce).
Accept the changes to crewing levels.
On Eurofleet negotiate to keep last day finish times and 10 days off per month for existing crew. (New contracts would only have 9).
In return allow short turnarounds/fix links on all services. Remember our hours are governed by scheme/industrial limitations so there is only so much flying we can do. Also the nature of our schedule allows for a lot of night stopping, again helping with lifestyle/work load.
There is some pain in my suggestion, we all have to give a bit.
The benefits for us would be an integrated fleet, current crew being able to move between fleets and main crew looking forward to promotion etc. (Our fleets have growth planned in the medium term, A380 B787 etc. Despite the crewing level changes, promotion opportunities should be available).
We would keep ALL our pay at current levels. Meal allowances would remain unchanged and trip lengths to some of our favourite destinations would be protected.
The company would save on future contracts, (market rate, hourly rate, productivity, increment scales etc). It would save on crewing levels. It would have improved utilisation of aircraft and crew on all fleets.
As an ‘old contract’ leaves the business the company would save again as their replacement would be a lot cheaper to employ.
What ever happens a NEGOTIATION will be required at some stage.
The sooner that happens the sooner we can look forward to our futures rather than staring into the abyss.
Hope this helps.
(I am cabin crew at LHR, these comments are my personal ideas. They do not represent my employer’s view or any other party).