With respect to merging of seniority lists, I'd be interested to know whether, if BALPA took a poll of all their members outside of BA, the result would overwhelmingly favour mergers rather than concatenation?
Perhaps even if BA pilots were included in the above vote, the result would favour merging lists not some other paradigm? The vociferous minority do not always represent the majority...
It is very difficult not to see this issue becoming a Union-busting activity, albeit, busted by the BA pilots from the inside!
Arguably, there are always those who have thought that BALPA stood for BA LPA, but I fear the insistence by some that "No BA pilot should be disadvantaged by the integration of..." might actually be a cunning plot by management to effectively split, if not destroy, BALPA.
Cognizant of the OW debacle, knowledgeable of the bmi-BMed precedent and presumably informed about the Virgin fiasco, BA have pandered to the naked self-interest of their pilots to place BALPA in an unenviable position and heap yet more pressure upon them.
Perhaps what Studi is referring to is do not be too distracted by the battle, but focus on the war?
That said, it maybe that BA pilots are quite willing to accept an emasculated Union, which ultimately does none of us any favours, as long as their status quo is not upset.
This is a sad reflection on our profession but a not unsurprising end-point bearing in mind the Anglo-Saxon (i.e., not Continental) context of the debate.