Stick together...
All,
It has been a long time since I posted on PPrune but feel it necessary to contribute given my current role as British Airways Company Council (BACC) chairman.
I first met SEPLA-Iberia leaders in Washington 6yrs ago during a series of meetings brought about by the AA-BA-IB trans-atlantic JBV that concluded in our 3-way protocol document between APA(AA union), SEPLA-IB and the BACC(BALPA). We have continued to meet regularly since then to exchange info and maintain the relationship, and in particular with SEPLA since the BA-IB merger was introduced when we took our protocol documents and relationship even further. I fly out on Monday to Madrid to meet with SEPLA-IB.
BA pilots and BALPA are not the enemy. As I expressed at the SEPLA-IB members meeting in Madrid last Dec 2011, BA pilots are not after Iberia pilots jobs and we respect your agreements. Whilst we are prevented legally from direct action in support of your cause, we continue to try and influence the BA-side of the IAG board when possible to find a peaceful means to end this divide. During your last IA we managed to prevent BA from increasing capacity between LHR-MAD even though legally our hands could have been forced and have sent the same message to the board ahead of any unrest this time.
In my capacity as BACC chairman, I also attend the Oneworld(OCCC) pilots meetings. We have pushed for a Oneworld newsletter to be published and hopefully the first edition will be arriving within the next couple weeks. Why is this important? The industrial reports from all legacy pilot groups within Oneworld read like a magazine of aircraft accident reports. Qantas pilots going from 24 x 744's to 6 over the next few years. AA in chapter 11, and at best will emerge with their pensions closed, double the number of regional jets to be flown by American eagle. JAL pilots with pensions halved and pay cut 30% if not one of the ones sacked on age or attendance records. Malev gone completely. etc, etc.
The matter is much bigger than IAG or even Oneworld, let alone to dismiss the problem as a BA vs IB problem. Our industry is now facing the sorts of "creative destruction" internationally that once re-wrote the US aviation national landscape during their "de-regulation" days. I would like to simplify it as "union-busting" but even that would be inaccurate.
The singularity defining industrial representation these days is to ensure when striving to fulfill the “wishlist” of the members, that the medium/longterm interests of shareholders do not make it necessary for the board to endorse mgmt to take you on, or start afresh. Much as union leaders would like it, negotiated outcomes are not simply the median of two starting points set in a financial vacuum.
BA pilots T&C's have suffered over the last decade through a series of evolutions, none of which were popular or taken without abuse from "hardliners" in our membership. Whilst I would like for the union to take all credit for the current survival rate of BA pilots, the fact is the economic background supporting BA's business has been just as much, or more a factor in our ability to survive as our adeptness to adapt. I have every reason to believe had BA's market felt the same level of disruption as that experienced by Iberia, we also would be at a war footing with BA.
We are under no illusion in the UK that there are board members in IAG that would equally like to outsource BA pilots as IB pilots, and they expressed as much when the opportunity to start afresh with the BMI sale arose just prior to last Christmas. We silenced such hawks by offering painful SH productivity changes and annual cash savings amounting to £10m/yr. This in addition to other more substantial changes in 2006, and in 2009.
The fact is the only opportunity for upstream cashflow in IAG is in the form of dividends and IAG has not yet issued any of those. Our own leaders in BA are not even allowed to cross-subsidise money/profits between distinct business units within BA, let alone across airlines. Our LGW pilots suffered changes in order to become profitable in their own right; apart from any LHR profits. BA LHR SH pilots suffered prod changes that we were only marginally successful in having being shared by BA LHR LH pilots. It is arguable whether any cross-subsidies will stand up long-term or will be discounted/forgotten come the next business plan.
Our industry is no longer the nationalised entities they once were. 40% of BA's profits are from flights not operated by BA pilots, the same is true of nearly every legacy pilot group. Our Scope clauses seem almost irrelevant under the new business regime. But lets not cut our noses off spite our face, joint businesses, mergers, etc have all delivered money into our firms and in BA has the potential to deliver annually half of the record profit BA ever announced several years back. As I said to our suspicious union colleagues elsewhere, that doesn't mean that such money will flow to our pilots, but I personally would rather be negotiating with a company making a billion a year than losing a billion.
When events settle in Madrid, a new low-cost comparator in IAG will have been established. The same IAG board members that saw BMI as an opportunity to start fresh at LHR with their preferred hybrid LCC SH feeder(i.e. Vueling) for all European IAG LH operations will be calling Keith Williams to prove that keeping to the premium SH business model has worked and is worth keeping. Believe me, BA pilots take no delight in events in Madrid.
When asked about moving from the principle of keeping pilots in the same company on one contract, I often reply that the first priority is to keep pilots in the same company. T&C's are only as valuable as they are sustainable and that means continued recruitment. Without which the unit costs drift higher with our median age and time to command.
I trust we will have a good meeting on Monday with the SEPLA-IB pilot leaders who I know have personally sacrificed a great deal to defend IB pilots careers and aspirations in very difficult circumstances. BA pilots continue to respect the career aspirations and agreements of IB pilots and my only wish was that human rights legislation had moved as quickly as the legislation dictating the freedom of capital movement, so that we would be free to do more. In the meantime, let's not feed the vultures through fruitless fighting amongst ourselves. We have more in common than any other legacy pilot working group in the world, and just as much to lose.
Kevin Judkins
BACC chairman.
Last edited by airrage; 16th Nov 2012 at 19:19.