Jet Set Lady, you wrote
You call me patronising, then make assumptions like the above!
and I apologise for the assumption. And also for grouping you with the bad guys, which clearly you are not.
Dolly Day Dream
Can I ask - have BA actually cancelled any flights yet? Just how have people 'lost' thousands of pounds?
Let me explain. People do not, by and large fly because they like flying around. They fly because they need to be somewhere else, quite probably at a given time. That need does not melt away because BA CC, or some of them, decide to support a strike. So many people, especially business travellers, have had to buy alternative travel already because the risk of not being where they want to be when they want to be there is for one reason or another unacceptable.
For some, their tickets allow cancellation, but even so the alternatives are now very expensive. Those with non-refundable tickets who have bought the more expensive alternatives and must now wait and see if they will get a refund. But they are already out-of-pocket.
Re-arranging travel incurs a multitude of other expenses; changed hotel bookings, new transfers, extra nights away etc etc.
If the striking CC don't understand that, it comes as no surprise if they don't understand why people are so angry. We have got away lightly because we acted very fast to re-arrange all our BA bookings from Dec 21st for ever, but even so our additional costs - related only to flights booked within the strike period - are considerable.
Those BA customers who cannot yet get refunds and cannot afford to buy alternative travel unless they get a refund, are in the worst possible position. Not only will they probably not fly at all, if those cheering morons at the Unite meeting are anything to go by, but everything they have spent to prepare for their trip, plus their accommodation, car hire and so on, will probably never be refunded, even if their ticket payment eventually is. A lot of travel insurance policies exclude strike action, and the insurance companies will be rigorously finding ways of avoiding payment because of the huge numbers of claimants involved.
Now do you understand? I hope so.
Edit...just read the bit about how the strike is/may be illegal, so some will/may get to fly BA as planned if they have not rebooked. But the damage is done. I would not want to be working any of those flights; the passengers know that the LHR CC majority are not working from choice, and supported Unite in trying very hard to cause maximum distress, loss and hardship as a weapon to protect their position.