Longhitter. BA is the only major carrier in Europe with a pension fund on it’s books??? Can you expand on your view of this, because my airline (bigger than BA), and very much in Europe, certainly has one, properly funded (read no deficit). And I know of four other major European carriers that have one. I realize that pprune is very much orientated towards the UK side of the business. Maybe you meant no other major UK carrier?

BA management played a very smart game by allowing this deficit, and to let it grow, even in years where enough money was coming in to make good on its contracts. This has already resulted in a major reduction in the whole pension scheme at BA. I am sure this crisis will be used to put the nail in the coffin of what is left. It is the Anglo-saxon way of doing business. Let the bonuses roll!

As example of the UK centrism on pprune:
A thread on Ryanair maybe charging for toilet service can rant on for weeks and count hundreds of post. But; two days ago a joint venture was signed between Delta Airlines (which has integrated with NWA) and Air France/KLM. Which will control 25% of the transatlantic market, represents around 12 Billion Euros in revenue per year. Each day 50,000 seats across the Atlantic are offered. And not a peep on pprune.

I still personally think BA crew are as good if not better than any but its the product they were dumped with for so long.

Premium frequent fliers shafted year after year by changes to the exec club, bonus upgrades you couldnt use, airmiles you couldnt use, expensive short haul club flights leaving Pax to fight over the armrests on the RHS of the aisle looking on in envy at those on the LHS with that nice mid seat empty - all paying the same price. (Might be different now with the 2+2 layout but you just know what will happen when the upturn comes)

Looking at current long-haul prices they must be half what I was paying 10 or more years ago. And loads down by 17% up front?, no wonder they are up the proverbial creek without the paddle. Well over a million a day in losses and caught in a perfect storm of trouble from every angle.

The name BA may exist in a few years but the existing company wont.

Otterman,

The BA pension fund's value is on the books with BA. Fluctuations in it's value and coverage factor directly affect the financial position of the airline. I have seen the Financial Times referring to BA jokingly as 'that pension fund with an airline attached to it'.

For AF & KLM this does not apply, since the pension fund for pilots, cc and other staff are independent of the airline. AF and employees pay premiums into it, but the actual value of the fund and fluctuations thereof do not appear on the companies' books. Worst thing that can happen is that premiums go up a couple of percent to make up for lost coverage factor due to stock portfolio decreasing in value / lower interest rates. No expert, but I think it's the same for Lufty.

Sorry for the confusion, it's probably a UK thing to have the pensions on the books...

LH

'British' Airways is probably an operative word

When I lived in the UK, in the NE, the airline was as relevant and accessible to me as KLM or Air France.

I doubt any of the regions will have much sympathy for them

F3G,

If you respond to the link that you would have been given with the standard response you will be able to frustrate yourself even further by entering into increasingly pompous and illogical discussion with customer services representative of ever higher status. BA don't care a jot. The economic downturn is a saviour to their management who lost the plot 12 months ago, or more. Fuel costs were high last summer and into the winter but where are they now?

The results are, in my humble opinion, a lot better than expected and, unlike the banking sector, who have been at pains to cover the worst eventuality in the final year accounts, I think BA are still trying to paint a rosy picture of a company with a huge pension problem, a failing business model and no real idea how to sort it out. There are still too many staff and far too many managers.

BA still has global brand potential but it needs a radical re-think to turn it around. There are few global brands that continue to operate in the same way as BA and, whilst credit is due for limiting their stated losses to £400m, the management need to wake up and realise that the world is changing far quicker that BA ever can.

Despite the persistent thrumming of WW stating that BA is a premium airline with premium values the fact is that BA no longer undertsnd the meaning of the word 'Premium' and don't actually understand that many of their customers do. This is why you get patronising guff from Customer relations whose mailbox is probably permanantly fixed to a shredder.

And Before anyone says that I simply have a thing about BA I will remind them that I was a loayal customer for over 10 years and have accummulated and used many hundreds of thousand BA miles over that period. The decline is terminal ( excuse the pun) and someone has to say it.

If I belived that BA had a future and could be a premium ailrine again - I would be delighted. I don't and I'm prepared to say it.

Munnyspinner

I won't use the link, why should I? I have a choice of three other airlines on the route.

Out of interest, the communication was in response to a press report (right or wrong, I don't know) that WW had only received 2 letters of complaint about the new CE seating, so I asked if they would kindly forward my comments to him; your analogy of a shredder sounds plausible.

You may be on to something with your view on 'terminal decline', IMHO. The average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company varies from time to time, but is usually just over 40 years and BA has existed for ........ 36 years.

I passed through the UK last week and found the 'upgrade to BA' adverts at LGW to be risible, the easyJet flights I took had a perfectly acceptable product, with very good service and punctuality. The seats were more comfortable than the BA 737 CE aisle product!

BA have not made a profit - boo bloody hoo.
I flew with BA LHR-YYC a while ago and was amazed to see a cruise relief pilot. This is a single sector duty, ( cannot remember flight time) What is the extra cost for sector pay, flight pay, hotel accommodation and away from base allowance just to have a relief pilot kipping in the bunk!!
I have operated UK-YYC lots of times and only two crew, there is no need for a relief pilot! How many BA flights are operated in this throw money down the drain manner?
Whilst on a BA flight Singapore-LHR I was chatting to the crew they had been staying at the expensive Raffles hotel.
BA get off and night stop in Cyprus when all the charter boys are operating straight back to the UK.
It’s about time they got in the real world, they only have themselves to blame and there is plenty of cost cutting to have.

If BA had not paid out £350 million in fines and £80 million the give managers a huge pay off to leave the company would it have resulted in a profit ???

Is BA still pumping millions into Willie's OpenSkies airline, whilst ditching staff and aircraft from its Mainline operation?

What a lot of boll**** people write on this thread!

I'll save you the trouble, it's 9:25.

Go and pick up your copy of CAP 371, a BA schedule, and then come back and tell us why BA think they need a third pilot. Don't forget the return leg.


I guess its all the ones that BA can't legally operate with two crew.

That must have been nice for them, perhaps they had treated themselves out of their own pockets? BA pilots do not, and have never, stayed at the expensive Raffles hotel on company money.

What do you think drives that nightstop? The desire to give the boys a night off in the Med, or the commercial departments decision about what time they want a LCA service to operate to best match customer demand and aircraft availability?

I think you could do with taking your own advice there!

Change the record, it's getting boring. The North East doesn't generate sufficient revenue to support a base for any significant network carrier. Air France and KLM don't do anything different from BA, except operate a less frequent service to NCL.

No it wouldn't. The £350M fine was on the 08/09 accounts. The £80M isn't to give the manages a huge pay off, its the voluntary redundancy bill for the whole company.

maybe not the best time to start veagas but its moving on on one of Virgin's most profitable routes. Just a look at the Gatwick winter caribbean schedule big increase in flights to bgi, uvf and anu with new routes to montego bay and punta carna again moving in on virgin.
Alhough ba's traditional business market is down longhaul lesiure travel is on the up so incresesing flights to these destinations makes more sense.

Can't comment about the other stuff but I last summer I often took a 767 into LCA arriving at the same time as the BA one and left about the same time as it did, to come home. It had a fresh crew, we did both sectors. But then I get to sit on a beach in other parts of the world that they don't go to. And my boss is not giving up a month's salary.

I am sure things like certain European nightstop patterns are being investigated in the drive to remove cost out of the business, the ones that work operationally and commercially will no doubt be changed.

Thw whole business is being looked at in a bid to reduce costs. Interesting times ahead!

BA did no such thing. In fact in the late 90s the pension funds was doing so well that BA was compelled under government rules to take a payment holiday from APS and in NAPS our benefits were improved. The government has brought about the demise of most final salary schemes (except their own of course) and the cost of winding up the scheme is actually so prohibitive that BA is stuck between a rock and a hard place - they cannot afford to wind it up and, by all accounts, the deficit is getting larger.

Regarding flight times and crew numbers. Calgary is 9+ hours and I find it extraordinary that people think it is acceptable to have two individuals effectively sat at the controls without any meaningful break for longer than they themselves might even sit at a desk.

Larnaca flights which are operated by some airlines there and back by the crew entail a very long duty and often overnight. Some people wonder why fatigue amongst flight crew is a problem!

Just because the cut throat world of the low cost airlines has led to crews flying to absolute legal limits and driven the cost of a seat down to unsustainable levels which, combined with the current world economic situation, will result in the collapse of an airline or two does not benefit anybody in the long run. Once capacity has been slashed by the demise of said airlines just watch the seat prices rocket.

BA has many problems not least of which is the legacy of having been a nationalised industry but like any other company with that background changing years of overmanning and extravagant or restrictive practises takes years of difficult negotiation with stubborn and obstructive unions 'protecting' their members. This is crunch time and either BA responds rapidly and effectively or sinks.

Ignoring the usual anti-BA rants here I think very few people will see the demise of BA as something to be welcomed.

Brian F
 

"Whilst on a BA flight Singapore-LHR I was chatting to the crew they had been staying at the expensive Raffles hotel."

In what decade did you have this chat? BA crew certainly have not stayed at the Raffles in 20 plus years, if ever.

The confusion is that we used to stay at The Raffles Plaza hotel, nothing like THE Raffles hotel.

The rates BA negotiate at most hotels are very competitive purely through volume of guaranteed business. Where should we stay the YMCA?

Crew used to stay at the Shangri La and the Hyatt and the hotel up at Tanglin Circus in bygone years. I stayed at the Raffles in BOAC yonks ago and it was the crew hotel then but it must be lets see at least 1965-70 .

The Raffles then was not like it is today - mores the pity. Perhaps this post should be in the nostagia section. !!!!!!!!!

What's Willie to do with BA?
 

Willie Walsh claimed his position at BA was rock solid today on the news despite the airline losing 1.5 million pounds a day. But what suggestions does he have in order to protect the crew at BA and make their position rock solid? It's always the front liners that do the work that get the chop and the management that decide the fate that end up with rather nice pensions and expense allowances. Maybe he can team up with the speaker and get a place in the house of lords:}

CAP 371 states an acclimatised crew of 2 or more operating 1 sector can operate an FDP of 13 hours if checking in between 1300-1759
BA103 schedule gives 9.25. a dept time of 1725L. With the hour pre flight and half hour post flight it could operate 2 crew on one sector.
Return BA102 schedule gives 8.50. a dept time 2135L. If crew not acclimatised the most limiting FDP on an 18 to 30 rest period is 11.30, acclimatised FDP is 12 hours. Flight can still operated 2 crew.
The LCA flight dept 0850 has 1.20 on the ground in LCA arrives UK at 1940 that would be an FDP of 11.50. CAP371 allows an FDP 12.15 there is no reason this cannot be operated there and back by one crew on the day just like the numerous UK charter operators.
I concede that the Raffles hotel may have been a one off for that crew or maybe it was a windup, the chat I was having was in Feb 2009.
I am in the real world and have been for a long time through the good and bad times within this ever changing industry, I’m just thinking of things that IMHO would save some cash.
Well done to Willie for leading the way.

A bit like the restaurant not doing so well so they cut down the number of waitresses and then goes to the wall because service is bad, but should have employed more waitresses to improve the service.

Cut the layers of admin staff and build the front of house service.