British Airways
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That's a sad parting, but quite inevitable given the incredibly slow recovery of customer demand from the pandemic. The analysis of long-haul booking trends by IATA this week makes for incredibly depressing reading.
At the perilous risk of levity in a situation where today's jobs and livelihoods are clearly and sadly at stake, BA have clearly chosen to forget about 1970 when the first 747-136s were delivered to BOAC. The aircraft were grounded for nearly a year under a BALPA industrial dispute before they actually entered service in 1971, which is the date "officially" recognised as the start of 747 operations in today's comms. There's nothing quite like a bit of re-telling of history as you wish it to be seen today!
Either which way, a sad day and a real blow to those hoping to fly the 747 for a few years to come though.
At the perilous risk of levity in a situation where today's jobs and livelihoods are clearly and sadly at stake, BA have clearly chosen to forget about 1970 when the first 747-136s were delivered to BOAC. The aircraft were grounded for nearly a year under a BALPA industrial dispute before they actually entered service in 1971, which is the date "officially" recognised as the start of 747 operations in today's comms. There's nothing quite like a bit of re-telling of history as you wish it to be seen today!
Either which way, a sad day and a real blow to those hoping to fly the 747 for a few years to come though.
I hope at least one of these aircraft is saved for a museum somewhere in the UK for future generations to see what the 747 was like.
Sadly I doubt this will happen.
Sadly I doubt this will happen.
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The big sadness here is that BA will use this as an excuse to make many crew redundant. They promised to protect the current A350 and 787 thus there will be fewer places to redeploy the 747 guys. The premature end to more than a few careers...........
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I hope the Museum of Flight in East Fortune can get one to compliment the Concorde they already have.
What an almost out of the blue watershed moment for BA. It certainly marks an end of an era after nearly 50 years of operating various variants of the 747.
Like Concorde though, there is no place for sentiment in business and if retiring the 747s 4 years earlier than planned is necessary to save jobs and the airline, it has to be done I guess.
The aircraft played a pivotal role for the airline and its immediate predecessors, so I do hope that they will give them a proper send off and a socially distanced farewell tour of some sort can be arranged providing lockdown rules become more relaxed throughout the rest of the year.
What an almost out of the blue watershed moment for BA. It certainly marks an end of an era after nearly 50 years of operating various variants of the 747.
Like Concorde though, there is no place for sentiment in business and if retiring the 747s 4 years earlier than planned is necessary to save jobs and the airline, it has to be done I guess.
The aircraft played a pivotal role for the airline and its immediate predecessors, so I do hope that they will give them a proper send off and a socially distanced farewell tour of some sort can be arranged providing lockdown rules become more relaxed throughout the rest of the year.
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The focus in the press has been almost exclusively on pilots and cabin crew. I get that, it's the public image of an airline. As industry insiders maybe we should be showing a bit more tact when discussing 'staff' redundancies.
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I don't mean to be picky but there are a lot more staff facing redundancy then just 'crew'. Consider, for example, the number of engineers, refuellers, baggage handlers, cargo and various other ground based admin jobs that make it possible for a 747 to get into the air.
The focus in the press has been almost exclusively on pilots and cabin crew. I get that, it's the public image of an airline. As industry insiders maybe we should be showing a bit more tact when discussing 'staff' redundancies.
The focus in the press has been almost exclusively on pilots and cabin crew. I get that, it's the public image of an airline. As industry insiders maybe we should be showing a bit more tact when discussing 'staff' redundancies.
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http://thepointsguy.co.uk/news/ba-gatwick-return/
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Is that actually true though? Reason I say it is it’s only 3 weeks or so since when looking to rebook there were LGW options to my destination. I went for City, end of August. The next day my new flight was cancelled, evidently along with LGW. Might the same merely happen for September once we get nearer the time on a rolling programme of postponement and cancellation?
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I don't mean to be picky but there are a lot more staff facing redundancy then just 'crew'. Consider, for example, the number of engineers, refuellers, baggage handlers, cargo and various other ground based admin jobs that make it possible for a 747 to get into the air.
The focus in the press has been almost exclusively on pilots and cabin crew. I get that, it's the public image of an airline. As industry insiders maybe we should be showing a bit more tact when discussing 'staff' redundancies.
The focus in the press has been almost exclusively on pilots and cabin crew. I get that, it's the public image of an airline. As industry insiders maybe we should be showing a bit more tact when discussing 'staff' redundancies.
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Unfortunately you do mean to picky! You’re moaning about PILOTS discussing PILOT redundancies on a PILOT forum - surely that’s exactly what should be on PPRUNE. Nobody here thinks that pilots are the be-all and end-all much as I’m certain they are all aware of the other roles affected by redundancies etc. However, that is not the focus or intended audience of this forum.
Theres always one.
This hasn't been an exclusive pilot's forum for nearly twenty years. I know as that was when I joined. This is the BA forum, not the BA Pilot's forum.
There are plenty of other 'exclusive' pilot forums (fora?) within Pprune, If you don't like mixing with the rest of us stick to them.
The vast majority of pilots and cabin crew I have met in a near forty year career have been decent, amiable people. Try and be the same eh. It won't hurt you know.
