As mere SLF, I've recently travelled to Shanghai on business and checked out BA economy plus for the trip from Heathrow, at £2500 return compared to £1500 business class with KLM via AMS.

I realise that the communist 60 year celebrations were only 4 days from commencing when i travelled that maybe a premium was going to be paid but £1000, my point to this is how AF/KLM can charge £1000 less and offer business class.

On another note, the 747combi KLM flight was fantastic, great crew my only question was who was the man travelling with his wife who kept entering the flight deck for periods of 2-3 hours and was even on the flightdeck for trake off and landing

British Airways to cut 1.700 jobs
 

BBC World

Not a good day for the boys and girls at Big Airways...

Good luck to them all.

TS

BA needs to eliminate a lot more than 1700.
A wholesale cleanout of the militant CC members would be a very good start.

Erosion of the product
 

I see they're also going to charge for pre-booked seats. Well done Big Airways - you'll still have a nice big cost base, but will have manged to further erode your product down towards the Squeasy, Ryanair end of the market thereby making people wonder why they don't just book with those carriers. Not sure why BA has to torment itself with these identity crises every few years. Why not better the product to a level where they can truly say they are one of the best, instead of following this downward trend ?

The ongoing saga continues (currently Thread 3!) on the Cabin Crew forum.

Parts of it make for some very interesting reading.

£120 return to book a seat? Its a disgrace!!! It's far too low!!! I'd willingly sell my home and all it's contents to fly British Airways!!!

On a serious note its the unions that are killing this airline and the legacy of the years when it was state run, a couple of examples spring to mind.

Recently on a flight to asia, one of the lights in the crew rest area at the back of the jumbo was faulty, as it could not be repaired mid flight, the crew got out the union manuals and all claimed, and recieved, £360 each for having their "rest" time disturbed during the flight.

Another example, last winter about 6 747's were diverted to Prestwick due to weather at Heathrow. The pilots were eager to get the planes back to LHR however the CC again got the manuals out and found that due to a divertion they were allowed "3 days accomodation" in a 5 star hotel. This they did, about 70 of them, while the airline had to fly extra crew up to ferry the pax and aircraft back to London. After 3 days lapping it up on the Ayrshire coast they were set to get the shuttle back to LHR and private taxis to Glasgow, however WW got the last laugh and demanded they not be allowed on board any GLA-LHR services and sent a fleet of mini-busses to ferry them back to London in ultimate discomfort.

Some of these idiots are getting paid £60k a year and you see them turn up at GLA in their Mercedes sports cars, compare them to FR CC who are regularly seen walking through Prestwick on their way to the airport to save their bus fares.

Smith your right! Let all pay to work that should help the crisis:ugh:

Smith if all that is true then they have got what they deserve!

FWIW, they are charging to pre-book seats from the time of booking until 24 hours prior to departure. i.e. the option to pre-select the remaining seats for free within the 24 hour period is still available.
So families who want blocks of seats together should still be able to do this for free, it will just be the more lucrative exit row seats etc that will most likely be "purchased". Just wanted to add some balance as this fact seems to be little reported.

Pre3

Hey people,
I have to agree with smith,it was true!But there are two sides of the story..you will see the Aston martins,porsches and expensive mercedes at the car park and you'll eventually come across the csd who watches a couple of films on his "office",while eating pot noodles on a 10hour longhaul flight,earning £60k,truth!

But they are a minority,and the real problem is the inequality,differences on our contracts.I've walked to work several times to save money,on my salary I can't afford sport's cars either,nevertheless save money...

A good example is LGW,where you can operate a band 4,11 hour day,then next day do a longhaul,minimum rest and get only 2 days off after the trip(earn a 1/3 of the LHR WW would earn for the same trip)

There's some good people out there and not every one agrees with everything that has been said,but I can assure one thing,is that a good part of the staff are aware, and we know we will have to accept some of the changes,however I agree that there are some very very delusional people out there.

Make no mistake,pilots had a sweet deal,but it was like taking your kid to the doctors for a vaccine:ok:,offer ice cream so they calm down,and then..it comes the needle.They will come back for you,this is just the start!

Since when is a 2.61% paycut a 'sweet deal'? Cabin crew are not taking a cut :confused:

What I meant was,it's just the start!I wont argue with you,just come back in a year's time,I do believe that they will come back(I was also told by a 737 pilot that on the small letters of that 2.61% pay cut,there was a line mentioning that you wouln't get your shares back if cabin crew strike,is that true?dirty tricks?play one against another?).And the cabin crew deal includes a pay freeze untill 2011,not a pay cut,you're right on that.Bu that's not in question.I feel that there are a lot of crew living in the 70's and SOME things have to change,I accept that.And the Lgw example,lgw crews earn less than Easyjet and very little more than Virgin already,so changes there would be unfair.
C'mom,you are intelingent guys,look at AA and A-eagle?wasn't it a similar situation?enlighten me:)

No. We haven't got shares yet, just a vague promise and there are so many other caveats I'm not banking on ever seeing a single share.

But the bit about them striking, don't remember that

I think you're confusing it with the fact that we would not get any shares if WE would go on strike during this period. A cabin crew strike would have no impact on it whatsoever.

Having said that, the targets we have to hit to ever see any shares are quite... unrealistic at best. Like the previous poster I don't think we'll ever get them. As usual, a lot of bull in the press and no reporting of the small print, such as release conditions.

(and most other airlines were already charging people to pick nice seats in the aircraft, too!).

For real?
 

BA is haemoraging cash, with more capacity, aircraft and crews than the market can bear.

An obvious and enevitable outcome will be job losses, pay freezes, cuts and all other forms of 'fat trimming'.

So in todays news, "Emergency meeting of BA Unions", is there really any truth in the rumour that the unions are threatening a strike ballot.

That'll help... :confused:

Reading some of the stuff on these threads takes me back to before there was an internet.

If anything is going to be the death of BA, these outmoded union practices will be.

Some people in Big Airways need to wake up to the realities of the modern corporate World.....you may not like it, but some of you have had it very very good for a very long time - probably 10-15 years longer than most global corporates, where downsizing, offshoring, erosion of T's and C's, big bonuses for the bosses who cut costs etc. have been the norm for years.

Get out of the 1970's folks and accept the inevitable before it's too late.

Well said wycombe and love joy,

Unfortunetly these people who have had it so good for so long seem to be prepared to bring down the whole airline because of their small mindedness. Do they not realise that everyone is having to tighten their belts and learn to live in the real world?
I for one disagree with the cabin crew holding the airline to what amounts to ransom. They will end up learning the hard way. As for the baggage handlers, do they not realise how easily their jobs can be out sourced?
As SLF I think the cabin crew do a good job, but at the sametime are hugely over paid compared to their counter parts at other airlines.

JOIN THE REAL WORLD!!

The original title of this thread (on R&N, before it was moved) was regarding the loss of 1,700 jobs, mostly office staff and cabin crew.
As regards CC, I now see that 1,000 have been offered voluntary goodbyes (in exchange for a cash buyout, no doubt)....and BA needs to do this even more, especially with many of their long-serving/high paid/malcontents, as lower paid CC is absolutely the way to go, to keep the payroll burden in check.

Just as it is the minority who can spoil things for the majority, so it is that some people on this thread also only want to focus on the same minority and ignore the majority. Smith - look in the car park of any workplace and you can see the same anomaly. U will also see plenty of crew getting of the bus from Glasgow outside terminal. Also there are plenty of crew who are on 10k, accept that a pay freeze in inevitable but longer down the line these new crew on new contracts will erode the work available to existing crew. Those longer serving crew living off a 60k basic may be quite happy sitting at home as the number of trips decrease whereas those on 10k rely on working trips with expenses to make their monthly mortgage payments - and pay for their bus fare to the airport rather than fill their bmw/merc with petrol.
Nobody likes the thought of strike action but more than ever there is a feeling that if my job is going to disappear any way what do i have to lose!

GLA1

No BA cabin crew earn £60k basic.

To make that figure, they would have to be earning a considerable amount in allowances from actually working. BA will simply reduce their earning capacity by 'ring-fencing' the higher paying/more popular trips for newer recruits.

And incidentally, the once 'high earners' won't be "sitting at home", they will actually be working harder, spending a lot more time on the East coast of the US/Arabian Gulf (not B2B's), because that is all that will be left!

Which in the longer term is good news for those on £10k basic, as they will see much more of the better destinations.

It didn't have to be this way, but that is what the union have achieved!