BAeng
Not X eng mate, still up to me eyes in it, but with a real airline.....

just so you know....

WW as an abbreviation stands for "Werkeloosheids Wet" or Unemployment Law. Guess WW needs to apply for WW

Assuming they're in T5 - they probably do all have their own logins but only one of them works :)

Staff comming together
 

Right Engine -

I think that these threads demonstrates a very important point, this thread has wavered and degenerated into a school playground slanging match. At times of sheer frustration this is inevitable, the important point is that we keep talking, a slowly, slowly we start to see a converrgence of reasonable moderate opinion.

The importance of talking and maintaining REAL negotiations should not be overlooked in the way BA management have sought to deal with our pilots. They have tried to maintain REAL engagement, the company refuses and spins. That is the true face of BA management, that i why we as staff are so frustrated, of course we want this company to be successful, it holds our future.

THough with the current 'shower' in power we are in a Terminal decline. I personally very much applaud the BALPA leadership for their responsible and professional aproach to the current dispute. I think the corporation has reached the TIPPING point, it will get better, but once we've shed the current unwanted balast holding us down.

BAEng

Is there not a senior person in baggage handling at T5 on this forum who can tell us honestly what really happened from planning, through testing, to launch day ? I have been involved with the management of very large projects in a heavily unionised business and whilst some teething problems could be expected this outcome appears to be baggage handling chaos. I should like to know what really happened at each stage.

Sounds a bit like the baggage system fiasco when the new airport opened in Denver....

Flatfour:

"They could tell you....but then they would have to kill you".

You will undoubtedly know about "cognitive dissonance". Otherwise known as "Talk to the hand", or "Lala lala lala I can't hear you!"
"

Sunfish - very well put, in support of what you state, (how do you know are you an x-staff member?) this is a recent post from elsewhere on PPRUNE. Looks like BA management are very popular.

by shortfinalfred

BAengineering

I too am a BA employee. I am embarrassed by the T5 issue and see much wrong in BA in many areas.

I am tied into BA by virtue of the pilot's seniority system. What is your excuse for staying in a company, the running of which you hold in contempt and which you are continually running down on a thread viewed by thousands of people on a worldwide website? Are you hoping to undermine and destroy what little credibility we have left?

Your postings are tedious and destructive. I am not alone in wishing you would spend a little more time reading and a little less pontificating.

Contraversial?
 

M.Mouse- no your not contraversial, rude yes, contraversial no.

I will set the same question for you that I asked of L337, which has not recieved a reply. As you seem to wish to castigate me for being the one that speaks out, when the truth is many others feel exactly the same.

The answer is not to ignore the issues, as BA PR dept would wish to happen, just brush it all under the carpet, typical arrogant attitude. No the way forward is for 'open' and if that means under the gaze of the world so be it. (BA have removed the ability for employees to discuss these issues internally by making you have to 'logon' before you post!) There is no facility within BA for anonymity to forward such views.

I do not see the postings made on here as regressive, they are indeed progressive and have recieved support from other readers.

The question for you M.Mouse is that in the internal staff survey the VAST MAJORITY, if asked stated they would speak badly of BA. That is demonstration of the strength of feeling within BA.

Please feel free to respond to the question, I would very much appreciate your contribution.

(p.s - has anyone on here ever admitted to being a BA manager? If any of you are on, maybe you'd like to COME OUT?)

(in response to your question - much like you the longer one has spent in an organisation the more difficult it is to find the same conditions elsewhere. Much like you I have committed much time and effort. Of course BA can be good again, the need for dramatic change is necessary)

T5 Chaos deliberate?
 

Has anyone given the thought that the T5 chaos may have been deliberate? Let me throw you a few thoughts.....

Last year I believe the 'engineered' cabin crew dispute which suddenly dissolved without any ground given anywhere, after the pension changes had been 'managed' through the organisation.

Look at it this way the cabin crew threatened dispute cost BA an estimated £40 million. The £2.1 billion pension swindle was exercised during the smoke screen and fuss over the cabin crew distraction. Typical standard IR technique. The pain was certainly worth the gain...

Hence, could it just be possible the fiasco at T5 was brought about as a distraction/smoke screen pulling the wool over employees eyes? Use it as a way of pushing through radical changes to the terms and conditions of employees? Or is there something we are missing, something we can't see yet?

Are the BA management that stupid they could get it so badly wrong? Is the pain worth the gain, a calculated risk?

Discuss...........

If you've observed the look of panic and fear in the eyes of Walsh and Kirkwood you'd know that it is not deliberate. Unless of course the whole thing has been engineered by Martin Broughton - but does he even exist?!

CNN video
 

Check out the following video;

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS...athrow.hassle/

Great video in which they state it was a 'monumental cock up', and question Mr Walshes future, hinting that Mr Walshes series of appologies are now falling on deaf ears as the hassle continues! It even refererences the www.weewilliewalsh.co.uk game, saying once you've had a spoof video made about you in this way, your credibility is shot.

So, it appears my views are very much in kilter with current opinion.

No comment needed - todays BA shareprice
 

A lot less to trawl through now that I get this message an awful lot........

I would guess that if BALPA comes out against Willie Walsh that his position might actually be strengthened, since significant shareholders are, as I stated earlier, generally only interested in profit and share price and, certainly in relation to the former, Walsh is probably seen as having done well (so far).
On another matter, terminal capacity/crowding, I wonder whether Terminal 5 might not end up being one of the most crowded at LHR. I haven't looked closely at the numbers, but I understand that T5 is built for 30 million pax per annum, with BA already carrying around 22 million (not sure whether this includes the Spanish and Australian routes to be consolidated at T3). This doesn't leave much capacity for future growth. Will the new incumbents at T1 and T4, for example, be able to offer passengers less crowded terminals?

BAeng.. no big deal. BA's share price has been up and down like a whore's drawers anyway.

One month:
http://finance.google.com/finance?ch...731&q=LON:BAY&

Compared to the FTSE it has generally tracked but the last few days show a 2% change. The one year is better.
http://finance.google.com/finance?ch...TSE&q=LON:BAY&

One year (compared in red to FTSE)

http://finance.google.com/finance?ch...TSE&q=LON:BAY&

Lonterm problem?
 

For all those posters saying 'BAeng' shut up you'll spoil it for the rest of us, grow up and look at the figures. WW & Co delivering shareholder value? What? Look at the value of BA shares over the last 12mths, can one of you more financially astute members comment.

There are serious problems at BA and the T5 fiasco, like ShortFinalFred has said, the tide has gone out and there he is, short as the baggage delays are long, standing stark :mad: naked.

WW get your clothes on and 'rack off' as Rod Eddington would probably IMHO say! (well it is Australian)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/...347fd7.jpg?v=0

Following the FTSE?
 

Luoto - nice post but think your wrong about longterm trend, your own posts shows a 10% decline in the FTSE over the 1yr period, whereas BA has taken a 40% decline. That my dear Finnish, vodka swilling colleague, is not following, it is divergence!

It look like BA and the FTSE parted company in about OCT last year, by the graphs you kindly provided.

Oh the vodka drinking thing, is an affable comment, as I just love Finlandia, beautiful smooth crisp spirit. Great for drowning your sorrows at times like this.

As for the bloke who has BAEng on 'ignore' whats the point, he'll never be able to follow the thread without viewing my comments. Anyway one less BA Manager to 'manage' with.

Has anyone noticed how the desenters refuse to answer our very relevant questions? Me is starting to think the answer contains rather uncomfortable truths. Or the managers are off researching a suitable response. If judging by their efficiency relocating the bags for BA customers, I guess we will be sometime waiting......and waiting.....and waiting.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

BA Engineering I'm not sure with your obsessive anger at BA I'd want you working on anything I was going to be flying on anytime soon. BA have announced that a full T5 program will be flown on Saturday. We're a week in, it's all gone badly wrong, people are working hard to fix it.
Willie Walsh's reputation lies in tatters, as does BA but the brand, given time will bounce back and T5 will in the end work well. However if the pilots strike does go ahead, and given the current set up with Open Lies I think you're finished if you don't kill this stone dead, then there finally exists the possibiliity the BA brand will be broken. And with something that special, that took a major effort.

This thread has just drifted into waffle and personal attacks, might be an idea to start afresh when there's something new to report? Mods?

All I said was that BA is not performing particularly badly (following T5 decline) compared to the FTSE and that the markets are so far not as bothered about it as others maybe.

BA probably does have its problems, I have no position on them.

Over the longer term BA shares might have lost value (or has it corrected itself to a more reasonable value... that is something that financial analysts can argue over as share price is normally something someone is willing to pay).

Things go up and down, just look at Ryanair's share price vs BA's vs ftse for example on a % basis.

http://finance.google.com/finance?ch...IRF&q=LON:BAY&

But I don't care :) And I don't work for BA either. Or any of the companies mentioned in this post.

Maybe BA hopes the Yanks will come and save it (from last night's news wire)


NEW YORK, April 2, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- A great opportunity to visit Europe this summer, with an added $50 bonus offer on land arrangements, is being launched today by British Airways.

Roundtrip airfares begin at $378 between New York (JFK or Newark) and London, with comparable sale fares available to other cities including Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague.

Travelers also have the option to upgrade to World Traveller Plus, the airline's premium economy cabin, starting from $125 each way from select U.S. gateway cities to London.

Travelers purchasing roundtrip tickets within this period will also receive a $50 discount per person on land arrangements throughout Europe, including hotel, car rental, airport/hotel transfer and sightseeing, such as London Sightseeing Pass, Paris Express City Tour, Amsterdam City Sightseeing Tour, and the Prague Vltava River Lunch Cruise.

Fares are available for sale through Thursday midnight (EDT), Apr. 10, 2008. Travel is valid from Apr. 8, 2008, through May 25, 2008. Sale fares are also available for travel May 26, 2008, through Sep. 3, 2008.

Further information on this promotion and other British Airways offers are available by visiting the airline's website, www.ba.com/april.

Comparable airfares are available from all 18 British Airways' U.S. cities to destinations across the U.K. and Europe. Sample roundtrip fares include Boston/Brussels starting at $495, Miami/Zurich beginning at $723, Dallas, Ft. Worth/Frankfurt starting at $623 and Denver/Istanbul starting at $879.

World Traveller roundtrip fares must be booked and purchased seven days in advance and are nonrefundable. World Traveller Plus roundtrip fares must be booked and purchased 21 days in advance. Fares may be higher for other travel dates, from other U.S. departure gateways and to other destinations. Weekend (Thursday-Sunday) surcharge applies at $30 each way. Fares are subject to government approval and do not include government fees and taxes from approximately $165 to $250 and a $2.50 September 11 Security Fee. Minimum stay of Saturday night is required and maximum stay is 11 months. $50 savings must be purchased with British Airways roundtrip published airfare originating in the U.S. Other significant restrictions apply.

Vodka
 

Finlandia huh...

Real stuff is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koskenkorva_Viina

The fly in the ointment !
 

Yabut ......

You need some customers to have any turnover never mind PROFIT.

By scaring the pax (and especially the profitable pax) away Wee Willie has cut his own throat.

Skipness - with respect, I wouldn't dare interfere with your professional status as I assume a pilot, I have uptmost respect for that communities integrity and professionalism. I would have no hesitation of flying with you or any of your very highly trained and industry respected colleagues at BA.

If you are stating you have confidence issues with BA engineering in general you should raise that through your safety review board. Just because and employee or group of employees are angry does not mean in any way shape or form that they would compromise safety. I would therefore respectively request that you retract your statement as it is very damaging in itself.

To suggest the thread is disintegrating into waffle and personal attacks immediately following your personal attack on my own professional integrity is rich!

Please get back to the subject in hand, yes I am very sure there are people at BA who would love for this thread to be shut down and bannished from history. As stated earlier, a well known technique of Joseph Gorbels.

One thing, i fail to understand this from your post;

That really does not mke sense, so it's ok for the Pilots to kill BA stone dead with a strike (which incidently I fully support them) but wrong for me to voice an opinion about the current problems at BA? Come on, I'm not saying very much different than what's out there in the media, clearly BA as usual is leking like a sieve. You may well know of other forums which the media and others glean information from, including BA staff approaching the media directly with information.

What IMHO is going to kill the brand stone dead, as you say, is an arrogant and disconnected management team, check out the following article from Travel Weekly, on an HR point it states; LINK

And great some positive news, T5 going to full service on Saturday.... we wait and see.

All
Just a reminder who has to mop up the crap and try to keep the show on the road........OPS.......please please please remember that we are only the piggy in the middle. The abuse we have taken over the past week is unbelieveable ...this situ is NOT our doing so bear in mind we are humans too with family/school fees/mortages etc etc.
Maybe I need some TLC ? or a lagre GNT

Sadly I'm not a pilot I'm SLF that's been on one or way too many VERY LATE BA flights of late. Coming back to every point made you disagree with adds little to the debate I'm afraid ! Let me clarify, if BA Open Skies takes off as is proposed, you will have the Jetstar scenario writ large. PLEASE use the search facility if you want to learn more on that but essentially it is a backdoor strategy to lower overall group Ts & Cs.

And you BELIEVE them ????? Do you think they can ever DELIVER ???

What does that say about the management that thought it was going to offer a better 'experience' from DAY ONE at T5 ?

Are they complete LOONIES or what ?

I actually agree with 'BAengineering' mostly. It's the responsibility of people who CARE not just to 'put up with it' but to press for CHANGE !

This style of management HAS TO GO ! That's all there is to it. It's killing the company. Platitudes mean nothing. This is SERIOUS ! The LOONIES *have to go * !

OPen Skies
 

Did anyone ever doubt that ?

It's entirely typical of the 'MBA culture' of reducing the conditions and pay of the people who actually do the work in order to reduce costs. Just how long do they think they can wring some more out of it ?

Basics !!!
 

But how is it performing as an AIRLINE ?

Even heard of the 'Golden Goose' ?

Golden Goose
 

Yep PASoundman, nice postings. :D

And Skipness, I of course fully understand the problems with Openskies. I came to this site after I felt internal BA messages were aiming to alienate the Pilots group from within BA. That again is a technique used to very good effect during the nazi campaigns of Gorbels. I came to the site to express 'our' support for the pilot community. Since the T5 fiasco blewup I have decided to stay and provide an opinion to what has happened and what needs to be done to restore BA to it's former position.

I fully agree with you, whilst not understanding the sentence, that a Pilot strike will be the final nail in the coffin of BA. That I agree would be a very sad day. Yet, as detailed in my earlier post, I'm getting an uneasy feeling of 'purpose' to all this. First a Terminal disaster, WW then maintains his defiant stance toward pilots, this can only be an intentional effort to break BA up, IMHO.

Well actually.... right now a strike from ANY section of BA staff would kill the company. Stone Dead I reckon.

Seems to me like a remarkable opportunity to rid yourselves of the worthless WW and friends.

Basically you can put the company up as hostage until someone comes along and removes the LOONIES. Dare I be that bold ?

Yes, I'd expect WW and his cronies to put up a fight but frankly they've screwed up T5 so badly, who would want them any more ? They're dead men walking quite frankly.

BA share price
 

Why don't people try and answer the following questions to help them understand why BA's share price might be depressed before they start screaming about miss-management:

What is one of BA's biggest single costs?
What has been happening to this?

Which market segment provides most of BA's revenues?
What has been going on in the world that is likely to impact on this segment?
Is demand from this segment likely to increase or decrease in the near future?

What implications is the Open Skies agreement likely to have on BA's market position?

Are investors likely to know the answers to these questions?
Are investors likely to understand the implications of these answers?

T5 symptomatic of long term problem at BA
 

As an ex-BA employee of 30 years service I have to say I never expected for one moment that the transfer to T5 would be the triumph that BA proclaimed it would be, though I was unprepared for and shocked by the sheer magnitude of the operational and PR disaster that unfolded.

To reach this assessment one only has to look back over BA's operational performance over the last few years or even decades. Look at its ongoing LHR departure punctuality and baggage performance and how badly it compares with competitor airlines. How many flights get cancelled as soon as there is a whiff of difficulties ? And then there is the apparently unmeasurable and erratic nature of the LHR arrival experience.

From time to time it would appear some of these problems were on the way to resolution, only for the situation to deteriorate again. What conclusion does one draw from BA's long term operational performance ? I suggest it is that the integrity of the operational programme is not high enough in BA management's mindset. They have scant regard for passengers' reasonable expectations.

My experience is that the vast majority of the workforce do their utmost to keep the show on the road even when problems are plainly the result of poor planning and inadequate resources. And the customer contact staff have to bear the brunt of passengers' dissatisfaction. Small wonder that hatred of management is so ingrained in the workforce.

There were already plenty of former customers out there with horror stories to tell of BA reliability and who said "never again". Now as a result of the T5 debacle such sentiment is not just the view of individuals but part of the conventional wisdom of the nation. Even when T5 is sorted out - and I hope it happens swiftly - BA's performance will remain under scrutiny. Operational difficulties will be perceived as part of an ongoing disregard for the needs of its customers and highlighted, whether or not the fault of the airline. BA will be looked on as an an aerial British Rail. It will be the pre-privatisation days all over again.

So what is to be done ? Restoring confidence in operational integrity at LHR must be a top priority. LHR is a difficult airport because of its general congestion and its over-allocation of slots, but operations programmes must take LHR problems more fully into account and not rely on wishful thinking that everything will go as hoped. This will require more resources both of staff and equipment and more realistic scheduling of aircraft.

All this will have a cost of course and one can say goodbye to 10% margins - but these are almost certainly dead in the water now in any case.

If BA can change its ways then it has good prospects for the future. It needs to convince the travelling public that it is reliable, that passengers can travel as booked and that they and their baggage will arrive on time. It will only do that now on the back of demonstrated achieved performance. But if it does, it can use its PR machine not just as a mouthpiece for mindless froth and nauseating glossovers of failure, but to announce its real success with pride. Then you have a solid base for recovery of public confidence and, eventually, financial performance.

And the chances are....? The airline should be run by people who understand the customer service ethic and who understand aviation. I am far from convinced that BA top management fall into this category. Resolve this issue and maybe the other pieces will fall into place.

All very valid comments, Pacamack.

The interesting thing will be to see how comparable airlines (think Delta, AA, AF-KLM not EZ, RYR) have performed relative to their own markets over the same time. This will give an indication as to how the City views BA's internal troubles.

IMHO though, it's a wonder BA have any investors left and WW certainly isn't helping. In his favour though, I think he's now finally coming to understand that there is a whole wedge of people between him as CEO and your standard line manager who only got there by virtue of their inability to say "No" to anyone above them. Irrespective of whether WW stays or not, only when that tranche of management depart will BA start to improve and not until.:ugh:

Tagron - excellent post sir/madam - I commend it to the house! :ok:

You highlight the real issue - the fragility of the operation, mainly due to unrealistic scheduling and an under-resourcing in key areas. This operational fragility leads to numerous breakdowns with the end result of late AC and misdirected baggage etc. QED - unhappy CUSTOMERS.

Management need to be reminded of the whole raison d'etre of an airline and start prioritising accordingly. In fact, better still, let's have a clear out of the top mgmt echelons - they've proved their incompetence!

Recently popped up on my screen.

03/04/2008 02:23 PM UK British Airways sees T5 impact of 16 mln stg

BA noted also that "...the impact was borne by the shorthaul schedule, where there were 300 cancelled flights, equating to 0.2 percentage points of capacity," it said in a statement.

Tagron,

A good post but you do have the air of someone who has worked within as you say and not the understanding of where avaition has moved to in the last 10-15 years.

You are 100% right in terms of customer experience.
The BA brand is damaged, severely damaged to the point of being the laughing stock of global aviation - easpecially in Europe.

You are right in terms of the gulf between the CEO and how services are delivered to the paying customer.

I disagree with you in your view that sort the customer experience out and everything else will fall into place.

One of BA's main problems is one of cost. Costs from:
Too many staff - YES, still too many for the size of airline - just look at Waterside!; the number of levels of staff in every facet of the operation etc.
Ancient work practices - just look at the crew/groundstaff/customer service staff T&C's against any well run and progressive aviation company. People say Alitalia is bad but get into the detail of BA and it is horrific, probably worse than both Alitalia and Air France.

BA employees, from the Chairman, CEO down to the front line men and women have to realise that they are not 'the world's favorite' any more; that no-one owes them a living and that unless they collectively move forward their prospects are very dicey.

Moving forward will take a lot of balls because every BA employee will have to look inwardly and ask themselves 'Am I delivering a better service more cost effectively than the competition?' The current answer is obvious.

Have the collective staff got the honesty, integrity and the will to ask the question and take responsibility for the changes needed?

I VERY much doubt it, certainly not from the recent history of employee relations.

Will WW survive? Not really relevant to the big picture.
Will BA survive long term? Now there is the $64,000 question.

GH

Tagron Post
 

Tagron - Mighty fine post, whilst not normally wishing to be associated with someone by the title 'sidthesexist' I fully agree it was a fine piece of literature.

And that's the point, a well balanced and calm individual, who worked for BA for neigh 30 yrs (I beat you there matey i've hung in longer!) knows that;

They are forceful words from a reasonable man. Maybe something can be rescued from the current situation..... A clear out of management, senior and Middle, a cultural change allround, and lose the YES men and fear for persons speaking out. An open and transparent efficient culture.

Sh1t I glazed over then, went into my Utopian world when really I work for an employer who holds totalitarian persuasions. I will eat my hat if things change, and that is a tall order, have you seen those bumpcaps they expect us engineers to wear?

T5 tradgedy
 

I love to try to keep track of WTHIH? at BA at present.
I'm OLD and find it difficult to keep pace with the present
situation as it develops.
My fuddled brain has come up with the idea that SOME
of the people that subscribe to this present bun-fight
over the T5 shambles seem to think that the situation
vis a vis the cock-up is a manufactured situation to get
the Pilots concerned about what COULD happen to the
Company if they take action over the "Openlies" matter.
Could someone kindly reassure me that this is NOT so?:ooh:

BA Eng

Or maybe it's a clearout of about 75%-85% of the 'core' workers as well as the management that's needed?

A phased role over, including out sourcing.

New people, new attitudes, new work practices...... utopia

And before you claim that I am a closet BA manager I can state that I have never been employed directly by BA; I have over 34 years in the business and have worked with BA on many occasions (and many other legacy and loco operators) on service delivery in various locations over the last 12 years or so.

GH