A couple of thoughts.
Regarding recruitment. Could I float the suggestion that the reason that so many applicants for MF got turned down was because the standard expected is quite high. Maybe despite the undoubted enthusiasm of a lot of candidates, they didn't quite make the grade in what BA wanted and the only way to now reduce the paper sift is to go for candidates with at least some flying experience.
This in itself should sound warning bells to those cabin crew who believe that they are hard done by and are contemplating strike action. If there are folk out there who have experience as cabin crew and who are applying to BA for MF jobs, doesn't this suggest that it is an employer's market ?
The other thought that has been bouncing around of late is the way that cabin crew refer to the people on the plane. It seems that the general approach is to refer to them as passengers. A passenger is largely a person who is carried on a vehicle, it's a passive role. BA doesn't have passengers, it has CUSTOMERS. They are the people who spend hard earned bucks on a ticket to carry them from A to B in a reasonable standard of comfort and service. It might seem a little thing, but passengers don't expect service, customers do.Without customers, BA would not exist. The way that we can differentiate ourselves from other airlines is by the standard of customer service offered. Now I'm sure that a lot of crew do refer to our clients as customers and do deliver excellent customer service, but I can't help but feel that one of things that may differentiate the MF folk is that they are thinking customer (not passenger) from the outset. It's a little thing, but it makes the world of difference.