Miss M
I work in Engineering and relate the rumours that have done the rounds in that department (and they certainly caused stress and worry). To be fair I cannot comment on whether other departments have experienced similar rumours only to find that things were not as bad as first thought.
I cannot change your current lack of trust in this management. I suppose it it could be compared with a personal relationship that has gone wrong and can take a long time for any trust between the parties to be regained (if ever).
It is clear that when this dispute is over, the BA management have a lot of work to do to regain the trust of you and your colleagues. I hope that the words and actions currently taken by Willie Walsh and proven to be true, will give you some olive branch to regain that trust.