I am coming to the opinion that BA really are just going to sit this one out. They hold all the cards. They know that the number of strikers is falling. They know they can run a near full operation. So they will take the hit financially on potential lost bookings and just wait until the unions and strikers give up. My only concern with this approach is that it leaves the issues largely unresolved and potentially just puts them off for a future date.
my bold
I agree re BA 'sitting it out'.
As for IA on any future date, there may be no future date. It is noticeable that ever since the last BA Engineering strike, when BA had contingency plans and managed to largely keep flying, Engineering has never that I can recall even threatened another strike - after all what is the point if the company carries on regardless. You lose money, and probably staff travel, and gain nothing. Engineering belong to Unite as well, although directly, not through a specific branch.
BA may simply want to show CC that a strike gets you nowhere, but that talking works. Eg, in one of the early offers, BA was going to reinstate some crew, leading to 184 more on WW/EF, but paid for it by withdrawing some allowances (telephone?) Those crew who gave feedback said they would rather have the allowance than the crew back, so the next offer from BA didn't give any crew back but reinstated the allowance and gave the feedback received as the reason.
In the short term future, BASSA has thrown so many 'reasons' into this ballot, that
if any strike actually happens this time, after 3 months, they will definitely have nothing new left to ballot on and be clearly unprotected, thus BA will have won.
The 'hearts and minds' bit will still be unresolved initially, but if crew see that they are not put on MF contracts, and their average pay is maintained via the top up, contrary to BASSA's scaremongering, it will happen, slowly.