Originally Posted by Electricflyer
I cannot abide those who previously refer to BA passengers as customers and then lo and behold suddenly, with the spectre of IA looming over the festive period, start referring to them as families and young children and start laying it on thick about how mummy and daddy are going to break it to them that they won't be seeing Aunt Flo in Australia over Christmas because of some nasty , vindictive crew members hell bent on their own self preservation etc etc.
Your emotive language comes straight out of the BA(mis) management handbook on Pravda and political spin in the Willie Walsh era.
Get used to it. Rightly or wrongly, this sort of thing will get a lot lot worse as the dispute progresses.
What you idiots fail to understand is that BA is not a charity run by the voluntary benevolence of the cabin crew. They owe nothing to any member of the public who flies with BA. Amazing eh, but an airline is a business.
A business that should be managed by decent, honest and transparent people, particularly those at the top. I'm sick of hearing the media spin on how overpaid and mollycoddled cabin crew are and how they enjoy champagne lifestyles and exorbitant T's and C's that are so out of line with the rest of the industry.
Utter nonsense I'm sorry to say.
Temper, temper. As for exorbitant Ts and Cs, we can start with your disruption agreement and continue with the fact that the service has generally been going fairly smoothly for the past month since the reduced crewing levels have arrived. True, less bunk rest is being achieved but it's not the end of the world. Don't get into the Health and Safety argument either as BASSA had no issues when it was imposed at LGW.
How about a CEO whose salary was £350,000 pa 4 years ago and has awarded himself increase after increase, bonus after bonus to all and sundry at board level; who now enjoys a monstrous £838,000 basic package. Go on , go figure...
Well, how does that tie in with a' Fight for Survival' ?
He can't "award himself increase after increase". The board make that decision and presumably they think he is worth the money (market rate?).
You want more? Mmm, let me think. How about paying nearly 40% more than he should have done for fuel during the last 18 months. And he only wants to pay his loyal cabin crew market rate. It's a joke.
Fuel hedging is explained in depth much (much!) earlier in the thread. In summary it is designed to smooth out fluctuations in oil price. Some years you win, some you lose but overall the fuel price remains relatively static.
Enough is enough. He may have ruined Aer Lingus but he is way, way out of his depth with a company like BA. The end is nigh , and the City will soon be telling him that if he doesn't remove these appalling, unilateral impositions on his front line staff.
Judging from the way the share price collapsed by a penny today, the City seem quite content with the way the dispute is being handled.
The 92% ballot was a fine result and well done to all who voted for IA. IT'S ABOUT TIME. He has seriously underestimated the resolve of his cabin crew who have very little left to lose. Like a cornered tiger, they are ready to fight.
It's only a "fine result" if you get what you want. Unfortunately, you won't as WW appeared on BBC News earlier to state that the crewing levels are here to stay as the Voluntary Redundancies have now left.
92% of 80% of union members equals approximately 9500 in favour out of 12000+ cabin crew. Considering the strike ballot was "marketed" by BASSA as a means to get BA back to the table and many crew will have voted in favour on that basis, I'll put money on the fact that a large proportion of that 9500 will not actually strike (BA will take care of a "sick-out" later in the week), particularly when crew realise that £30 per day (£360) instead of what they would have been paid in basic, pension contributions and allowances will not cover the Christmas bills.