A little bird has told me that British Airways plans for a spectacular send-off for Concorde in September and October look likely to be in tatters, and the guys flying the aircraft may just down tools.
BA Management, with their usual sensitivity, have decreed that all the final flights (LHR-JFK-LHR and LHR-BGI-LHR) will be flown by Management pilots. My mate tells me that an internal memo states that only the Management pilots can be trusted not to do something silly and spectacular on those flights. The same goes for all the Celebration flights in October, when Concorde is planned to visit many airfields, both in the UK and abroad, as well as the final delivery flights.
The regular line guys are pretty cut up about it all, and have sent a letter to Rod Eddington. The word is that nothing will be done, and that "Porky" Bannister will end up doing most of the flights, and, coincidentally, appearing in most of the newspapers and history books.
The final nail in the coffin is the the 20 or so Flight Engineers on the Concorde Fleet are the last within BA. When Concorde goes, so do they. So far, all the company has offered this group of highly-regarded professionals with about 600 years in aviation between them is early retirement (with just a pension), or, in a latest and in my view insulting twist offering them the position of Cabin Crew on a temporary basis.
Morale is pretty low, and the line pilots (Captains as well as First Officers) are just about as mutinous as the Flight Engineers.
Has anyone else heard anything?
Watch this space next month.
PiC 744 LHR