Taking your reasoning, that would mean that BA will decide on any flight on any day for any reason that I will be called into work and forced to work to maximum legal limits.
It doesn't happen.
There was a time, not so long ago, that pilots were hiding on catering trucks and leaving the aircraft in civvies to avoid weekend draft. Many have separate mobile phones to avoid talking to Flight crew ops by mistake as well. So it
can happen when BA have misjudged their manpower levels.
As regards crew manning check-in, the training required for check-in is about 12 weeks, twice the length of the cabin crew training course, due to the various systems involved. Some of our crew struggle with basic CBT packages so you wouldn't want to let us loose on the check-in computers!
TTB, don't pin your hopes on the court case making any difference. It will merely decide whether the strike is over imposed
contractual changes or imposed
agreement changes. The difference to Unite is negligible and the only impact will be a financial one if BA have lost and have to pay 'one-down' payments to all WW crew until they serve a 90 days notice. I can't see it having any other impact than that. The talks are, however, proceeding nicely at ACAS and both sides are up-beat about a possible solution.
We live in hope!!!!!!
All thoughts my own and not that of my employer.