Just an addition to the bidding debate:
The only group of BA cabin crew who DON'T have a bidding system is WW LHR.
EF LHR, MF LHR and SF LGW all have a version of the Carmen preferential bidding system, which is not based on seniority, but by allocating points indicating which trip type or destination you want most.
The EF LHR version, for example, works well because there's no clear "popular trips". Some crew like earlies, anathma to others. Some people like 3 day trips, others "there and backs". Some like long days like Moscows to maximise flying hours in a block, some like Southern Europe, others domestics, Scandanavia etc. etc. There's no great financial penalty whichever destination or trip type you choose, as the meal allowances (the biggest allowance type on EF) is mainly Euros or £ and evens up over a month. In other words you don't have everyone bidding for the same things, so the work generally speaking gets covered, yet people mainly get a roster they are happy with.
The reason BA has not been able to reach agreement with the unions over a similar system for WW LHR, is because Longhaul have very clear "popular trips" because of the allowance system ie. everyone wants SIN, BKK, HKG NRT and nobody wants anything in Africa. Unless you change the allowance system, EFs system on WW would not work. In fact a bidding system was suggested by the company, as one of the benefits of moving to an hourly rate, when we had that debate a few years ago. SF LGW have an hourly rate, hence it works.
Unfortunately the hourly rate deal on the table then will never be back on the table - it was too good to repeat. In fact it was described even by CC89 reps at the time as a "no - brainer for WW crew, less so for EF" and recommended by them, yet was rejected by BASSA. That can be seen as a huge mistake by them now, as, not only would WW have bidding, but which routes are transfered to MF would be of much less importance.