davejohnson6 - Agreed...

In normal times BA had a system where you could select a pre-retirement trip to be taken in the last few months prior to your known retirement date ...it didn't get you the fire arch but gave you the chance to pick a trip to go somewhere nice if you couldn't usually get it as a result of seniority and the normal bidding process.

Thing is we're not in normal times right now and the priority for scheduling staff ATM is fire fighting - they need all of the reduced sectors they can lay their hands on in Long Haul to get or keep people "recent" and/or in check....I rather suspect they haven't got the time or the inclination to start allocating retirement trips for those about to hang up their headsets when they need those rare as rocking horse do-do Long Haul sectors for those who are staying on.

Frankly whatever the reason for the overheard conversation as a 30 year plus ex'ish Long haul captain I really hope none of my colleagues of similar seniority would not be complaining in public about not getting a hearty send off ATM ...I'm saving my sympathy for the 250 plus junior pilots who without any doubt at all have been laid off at short notice without farewell trips..(and of course sympathy for the likes of TURIN's colleagues).

Wiggy
Sorry to hear that, and best of luck with the VR with BA and your future, whatever you want that to be.

davidjohnson6
Yes I have had that done to me in early 90,s recession, and I made a deal with myself that when it came to my turn to run a company I would treat my staff better than that ,despite what they may or may not have done, and also despite what a HR Dept recommended. So far I have lost 3 staff since 1997 two for misconduct (24hrs notice) and one due to her not wishing to relocate (3 months pay after 4 years service). Obviously some people have left to further careers elsewhere, and depending on the role dictates their leaving notice period. Sales people typically in my sector are re-leaved pretty quickly due to ostensible poaching of clients (any half decent person will already have got contacts etc before resigning in my opinion) as a result we do not escort of the property that day but will wait 48 hrs. I believe it is important to treat people properly as it is your reputation as a company, and as a person that suffers any fall out, and if everyone leaves on good terms there is always a route back for all with out, as the Chinese say, a loss of face. We employ and indeed train good people so I would always look to take them back if asked.

Thank you for that but commiserations not required...I had a good run and am quite happy to shuffle off into the sunset...

Gosh, that has made me feel quite sad and humble - Best wishes in your retirement Rog747

Just tried to book some flight from/to Italy on BA - some aren't bookable in fact they say they can't be found - even though, for example, they're flying the route BOL-LHR daily this last week. There's no central list of where the hell they are flying to either - or I couldn't find it.....

There is no problem finding or booking LHR-Bologna as far as I can see.

Probably because Bologna is BLQ not BOL !

Yes - but if you type BOL, or the first few characters of any destination name, into the booking engine it will find (in this case) Bologna without any problem.

It's clever enough to understand that you don't really want to fly to Ballykelly. :O

They did for me :ok: Sept 2013 coming back from JNB (Good grief that’s 7 years ago)

Only problem was I couldn’t properly make my welcome to Heathrow PA ...:{

Eh no

HR cannot act as a witness, they are employed by the company and it would automatically get chucked out at an Employment Tribunal. HR are part of the process not divorced from it.

The majority of redundancies at middle / senior level are compromise agreements where employee is met, talked to by HR and Line manager, provided a statement of potential payoffs and given time to consider this as well as an opportunity to consult an external solicitor.

Employee will still be paid during this consultation period until a second meeting where they can have a witness with them if required.

Majority of people happy to sign a compromise agreement as it is generally enhanced and way better that statutory redundancy.

Never seen this done in the UK, seen it twice in the US when I have worked for a US owned multi national. The UK process is not that cold, and certainly not 20 mins as you say. What company are you saying does this in the UK?

Back on topic, will BA really have to fly 80% of their intended winter slots to hang onto them at LHR in 20/21?

Airlines and airports have agreed to abide by a set of conditions together with slot coordinators under which an extension of the waiver of the “use-it-or-lose-it” rule could be applied for the entire 2020-2021 winter season.

During September, BA are operating a short haul schedule with frequencies significantly lower than 2019. From 1st October 2020, the schedule for tickets on sale seems to revert back to 2019 levels. Fare on rival reputable airlines on these routes are low which suggests demand remains weak and BA going from a 1x daily on dates up to 30-Sep to then going (for example) 5x daily beginning 01-Oct is definitely not credible. I'd like to book a ticket in October and ideally support BA but I just don't trust the schedule to be operated, and having my ticket rescheduled for a flight 6 hours different isn't what I want - and I have no desire to spend half an hour waiting on a phone arguing with someone why I should get a refund instead of a voucher if this happens

Anyone know when BA will publish accurate October schedules for short-haul ?

Only assummption of a plane at or around departure time you booked actually taking to the air is when on board and it has taken off, Other than that a timetable is aspirational.

There's a familiar pattern where BA extends by a month its policy allowing passengers who don't want to fly to exchange their ticket for a voucher for future travel. Then a couple of weeks later, BA processes mass cancellations.

This is true. It is also true that there will be huge doubts about
1) A rush to vaccinate as in let someone else be a guinea pig
2) IAG will run out of money long before we see a vaccine that will properly help matters

Commercially this is unknown territory. Boris today has announced "COVID wardens" and an incoherent new mish mash of conflicting policies which differ across the four home nations. The US is heading towards a race war and/or culture war, and the summer holiday season, such as it was, is almost over. With business travel quite sensibly nowhere right now, forward bookings across both long and short haul are nowhere near bouncing back, less so as winter arrives. Hence the only way to generate anything booking wise is to offer multiple daily options that suit the widest possible travel needs, knowing full well you'll operate likely only one and possibly the day before or afterwards. It's part of something vs. all of nothing. The timetable has been an aspiration only since March.

If an airline says to me "the aircraft and crew are all available; maybe we fly in the morning, or maybe we fly in the evening instead.... or perhaps we might not fly until tomorrow - we will tell you when we make up our minds", my reaction would be "OK, my time is valuable to me, my need to fly with your company is not critical and I don't have confidence that you will make a good faith attempt at what you said you would do in the marketing about a scheduled flight departure time, so I won't buy a ticket".

The last time I saw an airline giving complete fantasy flight times was in Somalia.... I don't expect a schedule 6 months away with Covid but just 3 weeks ahead of a flight date, major airlines in Europe should be able to communicate a roughly accurate plan

BA are not doing last minute cancellations to my knowledge. All schedule changes are made at least 2 weeks out, for obvious reasons.

Schedule changes are largely driven by customer booking behaviour and government restrictions. Neither of which are under the control of any airline or predictable with traditional revenue management models.

You only have to see the announcement by easyJet today that they will reduce flights to the Greek islands in the wake of UK government restrictions to see this isn’t solely a BA issue. Every airline is in the same boat. In an environment of massively reduced revenue and demand, the fastest way to lose money is to fly empty aircraft around the skies. And every airline is trying to limit losses.

Any airline schedule is no doubt published in the expectation that it will operate, they need it to do so in order to make morey. As the date approaches and it becomes apparent that it would be a massive financial loss, it’s not unreasonable to expect changes. This is unpredictable and unprecedented. All bets are off.

My argument is not that an airline should fly 5x per day when there are pax sufficient only to fill a single aircraft - I expect an airline to avoid flying fresh air around. However I don't expect an airline to claim it will fly 5x per day when it know full well there will likely be pax only for a 1x daily flight, and its rival airlines have chosen to ensure their promised schedules are credible based on current demand. Demand for flight will fall rapidly in the event of quarantine being imposed, but it very rarely quintuples overnight, even if quarantine is released

Perhaps advertising 2x daily which ends up as 1x daily 14 days ahead of schedule would be a fair compromise. Advertising fantasy schedules while rivals try to be credible leads to a distorted market