BASSA could not care less about BA and its customers - as presented by their recent behaviour of not approving rest time downroute to be brought back.
BA forwarded a request to BASSA and asked if they would allow crew to stay shorter in HKG instead of 2½ days - as under normal circumstances - BASSA did not agree and insisted that crew should have 2 local nights rest before operating back to base - taking no consideration whatsoever to the fact they would be bringing out empty aircraft from LHR.
Bringing out an empty aircraft with crew is regarded as being an operating crew - as they need to perform some duties onboard.
There is a word circulating that BASSA would have approved this request if crew had been "positioned" out to HKG on an aircraft with passengers - as these "duties" then would have been performed by the operating crew - but this would have resulted in 30 paying passengers being offloaded to accommodate 2 sets of crew.
Good on you BASSA and Miss Malone - you really care!