[QUOTE]I'll also happily admit that I feel it's only right for the leadership team to now start looking at the BA flight crew community in order to make further savings/QUOTE]
But that raises the point so many BA cabin crew who are prone to "pilot bashing" miss. The BA flight crew community has been targeted, and will continue to be targeted as long as the airline exists. Every pilot accepts this - some more philosophically than others.
For years the average BA pilot's terms and conditions have deteriorated as the industry changes shape. Pilots have taken pay cuts and given up leave, agreed to work harder (certainly on short haul) and accepted that the role of a pilot and the nature of the airline business is evolving away from the world that BA used to inhabit. I would suggest the problem facing our cabin crew is they are (very badly) led by a union that won't ever recognise this as it isn't in the vested interests of those who live very well off the union to accept such a compelling truth. It may suprise you to know many BA pilots are unhappy with BALPA and some even say they wish we as a collective behaved "more like BASSA" but thankfully their short term thinking is comprehensively beaten back by the shear number of pilots who realise we either move with the times or face total extinction, to be replaced by a new and cheaper workforce - sound familiar?
I think you will find most BA pilots take no pleasure in watching our cabin crew lead to the wall by militant fools. The majority of crew I work with are friendly, professional and pleasant - and deserve much better. In the interest of balanced debate I have indeed seen Captains I work with treat members of crew in an extremely poor manner - this is however the exception. In the same way the number of pursers/CSDS/main crew who set out to disrupt and cause problems in the name of militancy and revenge are few and far between. Most BA crew just get on with their job.
Pining away for pilots to face their "karma" as I have heard it suggested smacks of a total lack of knowledge of the past and a failure to understand the future. I came to BA from the world of low cost - believe me when I say that "we" as a entire workforce have a lot further to fall before we can face up to our competitors of the future. Keeping alive a bitter feud that is firmly rooted in jealousy and misunderstanding will do none of us any good. The irony is we are much better off sticking together but sadly I think that time has passed us all by. Good luck to the BA cabin crew - just like the pilot workforce so many of you love to hate, you will need it.