BA losing money ? how can that be ?

[onetogo]

Perhaps somebody from BA can walk me thru this one. A LGW crew are operating a single sector to Nassau / 5 day trip with a report of 07:55 at Heathrow on sunday. Quite a reasonable report time methinks. So........the whole crew,report at 14:00 on FRIDAY ! YES FRIDAY, and are then coached to Heathrow to languish in a hotel until Sunday morning on full U.K. allowances, until report time, not to mention hotel bill. No wonder they are losing money hand over fist !!. .Anybody else have any similar cases of excess to report in the cosseted world of BA ??

[mainfrog2]

I don't know about cosseted if they did that to me I'd be spitting feathers. I'd sooner spend two more days at home than sat in a hotel at Heathrow, even if I was being paid.

Edited 4 spelling...

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: mainfrog2 ]</p>

[moe]

Yawn...

Usual Sat. morning stuff.

Reason is NAS is operated by a 767 which has only recently been moved to LHR for longhaul. The only people being positioned up the night before are some of the cabin crew as there is a lack of 76 rated crew at LHR post 11/9 in the rush to move things.

LGW crew cannot do the service on the day from their base due to the very tight FTL and the dreaded M25. They should be going out the following day not 48 hours later, that never happens.

Flight crew are LHR based so direct report for them. This whole operation is the result of BA moving quickly to try and stop losing money, and not a cause of it.

Still losing it though!!! oh well....

[climbs like a dog]

And I'm not suprised the money's still being lost whatever the "ah but the real reason is..." tosh. Basically your crews are over-paid and cost too much. I mean your allowances are tantamount to a licence to print money. Also there's an incredible admin overhead.

The amount of money thrown at the above compare very poorly to the absolute penny pinching going on elsewhere in the BA Group, such as BA Citiexpress.

Must be awful to be on a mainline salary. <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

[Grandad Flyer]

Yes, but then this is the same company whose pilots fly to Cyprus. Then go to a hotel to rest for a day or two before they can operate the return flight. I think all the charter companies do "out and back" flights to Cyprus, even at night. Guess this is why the holiday companies are making more than BA right now.

[Land ASAP]

Climbs Like a Dog - Flies the ATP, works for BA CitiExpress and is jealous.. .Does he... . .a) Ensure these alowances are never paid to him when he joins the BA Master Seniority list when BALPA have finalised a SCOPE agreement in a years time OR. .b) Keep his mouth shut and accept that some employees are paid more than him whilst flying a BA aircraft?

You are essentially paying to work then Mr DOG? You want to pay for all your meals down route? Does the tax man take this into account for you?

NOW MR DOG I have advice. Go back to Waterside and stop stirring you irrelevant Pen Pusher or start dreaming that in ten years time you will be flying Wide Bodies on a BA contract.

Do you know that the average UK salary is now £32,000 p.a.? How do you stand with regard to this benchmark? Do you still want to pay for your meals when you are away?

SNIPE. SNIPE.

[twistedenginestarter]

[quote] LGW crew cannot do the service on the day from their base due to the very tight FTL and the dreaded M25. <hr></blockquote>

This is an example of a sentence which is syntactically correct but actually makes no sense. The point of this thread is that BA people can say things like this without realising that everyone else is living in the real world.

[simbad3000]

The average UK salary is £24,376.

[Land ASAP]

Grandad Flyer -

How long does it take to turn a round the Cattle Class of a Charter Airline?. .It takes at least 15 minutes longer for BA with it's Business Class and larger 767's.. .How long does it take from talking to delivery, fully ready, to wheels off at LHR?. .30 mins minimum plus weather delays etc. Let's say an extra 15 minutes compared to provincial airports.. .What are the average inbound holding delays at LHR at peak times?. .10-15 minutes. .What is the average delay for stand allocation and cumulative taxi time at LHR?. .10 minutes more than a provincial airport.

So a BA crew, doing a LCA there and back must therefore do an extra hours duty, compared to a charter airline.

Now the BIG difference between BA and a Charter company.... .We, at British Airways, have an agreement that if we are required to exceed the CAA Flight Time Limitations then BA must pay a premium. So BA prefer to 'slip' the crew rather than pay us the 'Duty Overrun Payment'.. .Well done BALPA, you have helped BA pilots not be fatigued at the bequest of those scoundrels we call managers! If they wish to fatigue us, then we will be paid extra to prevent them doing it too often.

Now, now, Mr Grandad Flyer, aren't we in a new era where an individual can be imprisoned for operating a mode of transport whilst extremely tired? Do you want to spend your life worried that when you cause the death of other individuals due to your fatigue having done yet another LCA day trip or would you prefer it the BA way?

There must be a limit to these fatigue issues. I feel, as a BA pilot, BALPA have got the right balance, so DON'T KNOCK IT!

[Land ASAP]

At my defence Sinbad -

You are very wrong. The census of 2001 states the average gross salary is £32000. You quote the 1991 census. You do, however, provide a very sound statistic which I would like to give you.... .In 1991 the starting salary for a BA co pilot was I.R.O. £24,0000. It is now I.R.O. £20,000. So wage inflation has gone up 33% in 10 years whereas the BA starter salary has fallen.

Interesting eh? BA pilots overpaid?

[Hot Wings]

Well said Land ASAP. I make that 2-0 to you!

[King Chile]

Land ASAP - does the expression "There's none so blind as them that cannot see" mean anything to you ? No, I thought not !

Your companies business model is seriously flawed, and made all the worse by an "I'm alright Jack" intransigence / inflexibility / stubbornness / narrow-mindedness / unyieldingness / obduracy / etc that permeates right through the enterprise. Indeed many at BA seem to have an Ostrich like mentality to problems, in that they really seemingly believe that if they carry on with their heads buried well into the mud it'll all turn out ok - but it won't !

The BA gravy train is in dire straights and to be honest, imho, it'll take a miracle to turn it around.

[Hot Wings]

So King Chile - do you seriously believe that exceeding CAA FTLs and reducing co-pilots starting pay to below £20,000pa will save BA?

Even if we worked for free the airline would be in trouble. It is not the front end that is damaging BA but the huge amount of hangers on. We employ more people per airframe than any other carrier yet huge amounts of the airline have been contracted out. What other airlines are offering their IT managers starting pay of over £80,000pa with date of birth equals date of joining staff travel? According to BALPA's research, BA pilots are the most productive in the world.

[Sir Kitt Braker]

You can argue from your corners until you're blue in the face - in the meantime the answer is obvious to all but the logically handicapped.

Who is making a profit? Who is ordering scores of aeroplanes? Who is opening new routes? Who is employing more pilots?

The BA way of doing things, (including its pilots' union Spanish practices), speaks very loudly for itself.

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: Sir Kitt Braker ]</p>

[mainfrog2]

Just to let the likes of Climbs like a dog etc. in on something. I work as a purser for BA at LGW. My salary is just short of 13,000 plus allowances which are under £15 a day regardless of how much work I do that day and let me tell you there are plenty of four sector days in there.

So seeing as how that is less than easyjet would be prepared to pay me where would this indicate the money is going. Moving to BA has opened my eyes greatly to the fact that some people there are on very poor money and others give the appearance of handing the company a lot of old rope.

[King Chile]

Hot WIngs - Ah, but BALPA would say that, wouldn't they - but hey, I tell you what pray enlighten us by telling us the typical annual Duty & Flight Duty hours that BA mainline crews do (Pilots & Cabin crew) and please also include in your answer how much TAKEHOME pay they got for doing it ?

And too my knowledge none of the main UK carriers, charter or scheduled, require one to bust FTL's,

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: King Chile ]</p>

[climbs like a dog]

Land ASAP. .I'm not jealous at all. I do work for BA Citiexpress and I fly the ATP. It's not difficult to deduce from my profile ('tis now tho').

Your comments about joining the BA seniority list and scope are way wide of the mark. What's currently on the table effectively amounts to nothing for us and a chance for BA to ruin our company's bottom line by reserving work on our larger jets to your own pilots.

I don't pay for my meals down route but there has to be happy medium between the pittance we're paid in allowances and the gold mine BA pilots have access to.

What planet are you on?. . [quote]NOW MR DOG I have advice. Go back to Waterside and stop stirring you irrelevant Pen Pusher or start dreaming that in ten years time you will be flying Wide Bodies on a BA contract <hr></blockquote>

I don't work in Waterside. The overheads from there are helping to turn two profitable smaller airlines into one sclerotic big one. Also I don't want to fly wide bodies for anyone, let alone BA. I'm happy enough with what I'm doing which is regional flying and being at home almost every night.

Reference average salary I think you'll find that 24k is about the right figure. I did read recently a figure of 21k. I suppose it's all about what set of stats you use. Anyway why should you worry. You'll be way above that anyway which does tend to prove my point.

One final point. If you were to talk to a lot of pilots in BACE you'll find that most don't wish to join BA. It isn't quite the pinnacle you make out. Most would have been very happy unmerged and profitable. We now have a growing number of management, adding to costs, knocking profitability. Unfortunately the merger, and the shadow of cossetted individuals like yourself, won't go away. <img src="frown.gif" border="0">

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: climbs like a dog ]</p>

[Hot Wings]

Well King Chile, I'm delighted that you brought that up. I flew 140 hours more and earned £60,740 less last year than my good friend who also flys 744s but for UAL. We both have similar seniority. I flew 100 hours more and earned £47,000 less than friends at CX, again, with similar seniority. Wake up -it is a global industry and once BA's retirement bulge has gone, most of our Captains will be on about £60,000pa.

Do not make the mistake of assuming that we were all born into BA with a silver spoon in our mouth. Many of us have flown for other airlines/ corporations/the military. We simply wish to stop the erosion of our conditions whilst other parts of the airline remain fat and happy.

[climbs like a dog]

Mainfrog2. If the money isn't being spent on you it's being spent and some elsewhere in the organisation.

[climbs like a dog]

OK Hot Wings. You're not a politician so please answer the question. The 60,000 basic gets topped up with allowances. What would the allowances be?

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: climbs like a dog ]</p>

[Hot Wings]

Why are you interested anyway? I thought that you were planning to retire at BACE.

Some of us appear to be a bit naive as far as allowances are concerned. Does a businessman include his lunch/dinner expenses as part of his annual salary? I think not!

I suspect that you are actually refering to the flying hours rate (FHR) which varies according to sector length. You do not receive allowances or FHR when you are sick, on leave, in the sim or on a training course.

Sadly, in my previous post, I was including my total income for the comparisons. I did not include the allowances that my friend at UAL receives - so now I feel even worse off!!!

[King Chile]

Hot Wings - you obviously find it difficult to answer a straight question don’t you ?!. . . .So let me make it simpler for you, by way of three very easy ones:

A). In the last year how many hours duty did you do ?

B). In the last year how many hours flying did you do ?

C). In the last year what was your TAKE-HOME pay ?

I'm simply trying to get a measure of just how productive are BA crews - compared to the rest of us - and after all it was you who quoted what BALPA (apparently) said - so let's see some proof of that, i.e. put up, or shut up !

[twistedenginestarter]

We still haven't answered the original question :

A LGW crew are operating a single sector ...with a report of 07:55 at Heathrow on sunday. So........the whole crew,report at 14:00 on FRIDAY and are then coached to Heathrow

The difference between my world and BA World is would this have happenned if it had been a LHR crew? You look puzzled.

To me Gatwick Heathrow what's the difference? Half the crew live in Luton and the pilots come in from Jersey. Pay mileage allowance if necessary, or refund train tickets if you don't like the M25.

Somebody is saying "We are Gatwick so you are going to have to start things from there." Less likely BA are saying you'll have to do something at Gatwick because we are too stupid to handle you directly at Heathrow.

The point is this is like the 70s.

If I worked for an organisation that is in trouble partly because of circumstances beyond its control, I would expect to get up a bit earlier and go a few extra miles to make things happen. It's about time BA staff started to own problems and use their initiative to solve them.

[onetogo]

Moe,. .sorry to break your slumber ! . .My post was factual ,I dropped one of the crew off at LGW to report at 14:00 on Friday, apologise at your leisure.. .Folks we seemed to be diversifying a little bit here , Im sure there must be hundreds of other shameful waste stories, yes i too do Larnaca's and back, without the need to spend a couple of days in a hotel in between. Now of course i would given half a chance, but thats the difference between good business, and blatant indulgence. What about the middle east station where the cabin crew go to the airport in a minibus and the flight crew in a limousine for the same report time, If i didnt own some of BA it would almost be funny ! <img src="mad.gif" border="0">

[Brakes...beer]

Mainfrog 2,

Aren't you still on CityFlyer pay and allowances? Just interested. Will you get much of a rise when you move over to BA pay scales?

[Flightrider]

I'm sorry, but I have to agree that some of the working practices which BA has are absolutely ridiculous.

The Larnaca thing is a good example; and no, I don't agree that it should take longer to turn a BA 767 round than a charter 767. On the latter, you have 326 pax to disembark, clean the aircraft and board 326, whereas BA has one third fewer pax. The critical path to a good turnround is pax off, cleaners on, cleaners off, pax on as you can fulfil all of the other functions in tandem. So we are saying either a) that BA pax are slower to disembark than their charter compatriots; or b) the BA cleaners are slower. Laughable either way.

Holding delays ex LHR at approx 15 minutes are often lower than the LGW delays of up to 20 minutes, so that argument doesn't apply either.

There are numerous other idiotic things in BA's agreements which just make me laugh. It's no wonder they can't make money when:

a) EOG pilots are limited to 700 flight hours per year and can only exceed 720 with the full agreement of BALPA and EOG management. I suspect the average utilisation of a Go/easyJet pilot is well on the north side of 800 hours, towards the legal maximum of 900. So BA has instantly sacrificed 23% of its potential pilot productivity - oh, and I forgot to say - sim details and office days count towards your 700 hours at a notional rate of up to four hours per office or sim detail!

b) The wonderful bidding system at LGW (Carnage to its friends) which allows you to bid for - and allocates - nightstops in places where they don't even nightstop aircraft. Nice, low cost philosophy. The principle appears to be that, if you aren't happy with your roster, you will go sick and your productivity will fall, so they give you what you want if you have sufficient seniority to get it. It also lets you choose to operate fewer sectors throughout your working week.

c) If you're replaced by a management pilot for whatever reason on a flight, you can still opt to go along and sit on the jumpseat to claim your allowances!

d) If you get taken off a few days' trip part-way through (e.g. due to late running aircraft) and don't complete the rest of the trip, you still get paid your allowances for sitting at home.

e) The great agreement that cabin crew will be paid up to £38 (£52 for a CSD) for waiting an hour and a half in the crew lounge at Heathrow between flights if they don't have time to go back to the Compass Centre.

f) The crazy agreement that city centre hotels have to be used for crew accommodation, even if you're only on a split duty nightstop. Good, cheap hotels with cheap transport costs they most certainly are not.

g) The crewing of the Middle East routes. A 777 operates Heathrow-Bahrain-Doha-Bahrain-Heathrow almost every day. Now, you would think (given the 6h30 sector to BAH and the 0h40 onwards to DOH) that one crew would take the aircraft LHR-BAH-DOH and then get off, getting back on the following day to fly DOH-BAH-LHR. Common sense. Well, BA crews fly one sector LHR-BAH & get off; operate BAH-DOH-BAH shuttle on the following day; then get a slip day in BAH and operate BAH-LHR eventually on day 5. What should be a three-day trip turns into a five-day trip due to some ridiculous rule about having to get off a long-haul aircraft if it's flown a sector of more than 5h00. A joke - and an inefficient joke at that.

The sooner someone faces facts and realises that these things are costing megabucks, the better. I'm not advocating flogging every pilot or cabin crew member up to the legal limits of CAP371, but I do think that the existing BA agreements are outrageously stacked against the company's ability to compete in the modern day market.

And incidentally, when will Concorde crews start operating LHR-JFK-LHR in a duty day? It's no longer a duty day than your average charter day out to DLM, HER, LCA and the like.

The whole job lot - BALPA, BASSA, CC89 agreements - need to be torn up and a bunch of BA and union people locked in a room for days to renegotiate something sensible to strike a balance between economic reality and the need to ensure your employees have reasonable working conditions.

But when will someone at BA have the balls to actually tackle this issue? People with guts to go out and achieve change at that airline are in noticeably short supply and 9/10ths of this is of management's own making as they are just too scared to tackle these problems head-on.

PS - Before you ask, I don't work for BA, any of its subsidiaries, franchises or associates in any way.

[gotajob4us?]

1) The CAA have never liked having crews based at two different bases for longhaul ops, which would operate close to the FTLs if they their duty day starts at a different base.

2)The reason for two days early at a LHR is most probably cover for the Saturdays operation.

3) BA pilots (espc LH) are some of the MOST productive crews around. A substantial amount of -400 pilots are averaging 850-890 hours this year. 777 folks are not far behind. When you couple this with the fact that NO other flag carrier pay their 777/747-400 pilots less, (Air India) you can see that BA gets amazing productivity from their pilots. This has been proved IREFUTABLY by BALPA, by the way of significant research, rather than by the way of peoples half cooked ideas and ‘Chinese whispers’ about how little BA pilots work and how much they get overpaid.

. .4) You are all missing the point, sniping at BAs 'better' deal than other carriers. (in the UK market place only that is…). The top paying airline will always have a positive affect on the pay of other airlines within its region. As long as people leave charter carriers/BMI/VS etc to go to BA, the other operators will be forced to review their packages. Its called market forces, and it benefits those in BACE, just as much as it does receiving mainline deals.

PS. the crew ratios havent changed over the past few years, but somehow, despite selling large lumps of the company off, the headcount has gone up by 10,000 or was it 15,000? And if AA/UA/CX etc made money in the 90's with Skippers on $300,000 - $350,000 operating the 777, I think that crew remuneration has less bearing on the balance sheet than the grossly inflated managment structure.

[Hot Wings]

King Chile - your keen interest in my personal annual hours and pay is hardly scientific is it? If you wish to find out the facts either email BALPA directly or take the time to conduct a survey of the 3,500 flight crew at BA! Our payscales are also available on the BALPA website. You too, seem to have fallen for the Daily Mail line that we all make £200,000pa.

Also, in any month, on the 744, between 10 and 30% of the pilots are in danger of exceeding the 900 hours annual flight time limit. We cannot legally be any more productive.

[Scottie]

[quote] that NO other flag carrier pay their 777/747-400 pilots less <hr></blockquote>

gotajob4us,

I fail to see the reason for the comparison with other flag carriers? What makes you think British Airways is the flag carrier for the UK (do virgin & bmi not also paint flags on their aircraft? Surely a comparison should be done with a similar competitor based in the same economic area?

Virgin pilot's are as productive as BA's pilots and at probably half the cost.

Hot Wings,

900hrs per year on long haul is not difficult to achieve, let's face it going in a straight line for 9-12hrs is hardly stressful and if you are stressed by this then you should have stayed shorthaul!

I applaud your T&C's, think they're great and would love to be on them myself but I live & work in the real world and unfortunately I think you chaps will too in the not too distant future.

[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: Scottie ]</p>

[Jet II]

quote:. .--------------------------------------------------------------------------------. . that NO other flag carrier pay their 777/747-400 pilots less . .--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gotajob4us,

Why are you comparing your salary with other countries airlines? surely your comparison should be with the other UK airlines. My salary at BA as an Engineer is about 1/3rd it would be if I worked for one of the big American carriers - but compared to the pay scales at other UK airlines I am only slightly behind.

[knows]

King Chile said "And too my knowledge none of the main UK carriers, charter or scheduled, require one to bust FTL's,".. .Well that's bollox.. .I spent 5 years with two charter airlines who would ALWAYS assume that you'd be prepared to go 3 hours into discretion. (sometimes illegally before leaving base!). . .Believe me there is an awful lot of pressure applied.

[christep]

Land ASAP: not sure where you are getting your figures... <a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk" target="_blank">www.statistics.gov.uk</a> and the obvious links from there show that the average weekly gross earnings for all UK adults in full time employment in April 2000 (the latest validated figures - the 2001 census is not yet published)was GBP 419.70 which is a long way short of 32,000pa

[Flightrider]

Whoa, I didn't think we were talking about busting FTLs - I thought this discussion was about working practices which are more restrictive than CAP371.

And I really don't follow this argument about the CAA not liking crews being based at two airports for long-haul ops. The criteria for ground positioning before and after duty are clearly laid down in CAP371 and I'm sure there are a number of precedents of airlines having long-haul crew bases at more than one UK airport!

[Land ASAP]

Apologies - To quote the National Statistics Web Site

Salaries for male staff reached £24,300 in April, with men in non-manual jobs taking home an average of more than £30,000 a year.

[leander]

An insight into productivity at BA :

I've just done a CAA medical so I've had cause to check my hours in the last 6 months - 448:04.

These are flying hours.

This figure would have been approx 50 greater had I not dropped 3 recent trips due training/excess hours/security scare.(Oh and another 18 hour trip lost while stuck in LAX 9/11)

Basic pay (B scale) - 38k

I'm ex charter , pleased to be here , could work less , wouldn't mind being paid more.

By all means keep knocking if you think the above represents a gravy train but as I cannot legally do any more work.

[Land ASAP]

Flightrider, allow me to respond to your points.... .<ul type="square"> The Larnaca thing is a good example; and no, I don't agree that it should take longer to turn a BA 767 round than a charter 767. On the latter, you have 326 pax to disembark, clean the aircraft and board 326, whereas BA has one third fewer pax. The critical path to a good turnround is pax off, cleaners on, cleaners off, pax on as you can fulfil all of the other functions in tandem. So we are saying either a) that BA pax are slower to disembark than their charter compatriots; or b) the BA cleaners are slower...Please tell me which company flies 767's to LCA from LGW? I know some who use 757's. . Holding delays ex LHR at approx 15 minutes are often lower than the LGW delays of up to 20 minutes, so that argument doesn't apply either.. .You are kidding aren't you? That LGW has more holding than LHR. Been to LHR have you?. . EOG pilots are limited to 700 flight hours per year and can only exceed 720 with the full agreement of BALPA and EOG management...and sim details and office days count towards your 700 hours at a notional rate of up to four hours per office or sim detail!. .Pardon? It is true that when we are in the simulator we are on duty, aren't you? But that duty is not involved in the FTL's. BTW, from June 1999 to June 2000 I amassed 820 hours flying on a BA mainline S/H contract. In the following 12 months I flew 690. Who's fault? . . The wonderful bidding system at LGW (Carnage to its friends) which allows you to bid for - and allocates - nightstops in places where they don't even nightstop aircraft. Nice, low cost philosophy. The principle appears to be that, if you aren't happy with your roster, you will go sick and your productivity will fall, so they give you what you want if you have sufficient seniority to get it. It also lets you choose to operate fewer sectors throughout your working week.. .Did I mention LGW rostering programs in my posting? I work to Bidline rules. They are the "fairest work allocation program in the Aviation world" according to IALPA.. . If you're replaced by a management pilot for whatever reason on a flight, you can still opt to go along and sit on the jumpseat to claim your allowances!. .Management have many opportunities to 'extract' trips weeks before work is dealt out so why would they nick a trip at the last minute? It could well be an abuse of their authority. Pilots rarely use this clause. But why do managers take a trip at the last minute? I had a Milan nightstop taken from me when a succesful football team from the North qualified for the next round of the Champions league after the extracting had finished. . . If you get taken off a few days' trip part-way through (e.g. due to late running aircraft) and don't complete the rest of the trip, you still get paid your allowances for sitting at home.. .I don't know who told you this but this is cr$p I'm afraid. . The great agreement that cabin crew will be paid up to £38 (£52 for a CSD) for waiting an hour and a half in the crew lounge at Heathrow between flights if they don't have time to go back to the Compass Centre.. .This is a pilots forum, so ask the C/C about Central Area Turnaround payments on another website. . The crazy agreement that city centre hotels have to be used for crew accommodation, even if you're only on a split duty nightstop. Good, cheap hotels with cheap transport costs they most certainly are not. . .Sad but true this. Shows the level of trust BALPA has of the senior managers, who will quite likely make us ALWAYS stay in the airport Travelodge once a split duty crew stays there.. . The crewing of the Middle East routes. A 777 operates Heathrow-Bahrain-Doha-Bahrain-Heathrow almost every day. Now, you would think (given the 6h30 sector to BAH and the 0h40 onwards to DOH) that one crew would take the aircraft LHR-BAH-DOH and then get off, getting back on the following day to fly DOH-BAH-LHR. Common sense. Well, BA crews fly one sector LHR-BAH & get off; operate BAH-DOH-BAH shuttle on the following day; then get a slip day in BAH and operate BAH-LHR eventually on day 5. What should be a three-day trip turns into a five-day trip due to some ridiculous rule about having to get off a long-haul aircraft if it's flown a sector of more than 5h00. A joke - and an inefficient joke at that.. .That could be another question to ask BASSA (C/C), not BALPA!. . And incidentally, when will Concorde crews start operating LHR-JFK-LHR in a duty day? It's no longer a duty day than your average charter day out to DLM, HER, LCA and the like.. .Good question this. I suspect that it is the Upper Level radiation that comes into play but do not quote me . . The whole job lot - BALPA, BASSA, CC89 agreements - need to be torn up and a bunch of BA and union people locked in a room for days to renegotiate something sensible to strike a balance between economic reality and the need to ensure your employees have reasonable working conditions.. .I agree. . But when will someone at BA have the balls to actually tackle this issue? People with guts to go out and achieve change at that airline are in noticeably short supply and 9/10ths of this is of management's own making as they are just too scared to tackle these problems head-on.. .Hmmmm. I'll pass that to the board. Openess, honesty and a long period without the dirty trick brigade getting involved? We pilots would love to see such an era!. .[/list]

Have a pop at the appropriate when answering the title of this thread. We all bear some of the blame, however the pilots are not as blameworthy as you all seem to think. The good days ended in 1991.

[Flightrider]

Land ASAP,

a) 767s to LCA - Britannia and Airtours. They each have one 767-300 roundtrip per week ex LGW to LCA this summer and have operated numerous in the past, all on a straight crew duty day.

b) At certain times of day, I'm not kidding that LGW has more holding than LHR. I've been to both - frequently.

c) Yes, sim time does count as duty time. But it doesn't count towards your annual flying limit of 900hrs, as in the BAEG agreement. Are you on BAEG or mainline contract? It seems as though there are some differences in the contractual terms between the two, which would indicate that BAEG are less productive than mainline, when in fact they are the ones having to fight easyJet on costs at LGW!

d) No you didn't mention LGW rostering programmes but I did - as an example of what I see to be gross inefficiency contributing to BA's losses.

e) The bit about being taken off the trip and still getting your allowances isn't crap under the BAEG agreement. It may be for mainline but at least part of BA is working to this - and that is a part of BA which is allegedly losing a lot of money, hence it is reasonable to discuss it here under the thread title.

f) Crewing of the Middle East routes isn't a BASSA issue as the cabin crew do work the sensible pattern I outlined and take the aircraft all the way through to its end station. The pattern is different for flight crew and so it's a BALPA issue!

Personally, you can't blame pilots for the state of the agreement. It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas if they opted to give up a number of the clauses in the scheduling agreements and I wouldn't expect them to do that voluntarily for one minute.

However, I don't think the current situation with regard to some of these issues can continue ad infinitum. It has to change otherwise BA's cost base will never come down to allow it to compete profitably with its rivals.

To achieve a change, you need a management which is pre-disposed towards achieving change (as opposed to inertia at present) and a group of people on the other side of the table who accept that some change is necessary. At the moment, you have a significant proportion of the 50,000 people in BA believing the worst thing that can happen this year is that BA doesn't make a profit. It could be far worse than that; and the sooner all involved sit round a table to agree something which will enhance job security, the better BA's long-term prospects (and those of its employees) will be.

[Orangewing]

Hey, Flightrider - easyJet Pilots flying north of 800hrs a year? I wish !!!. .I fly for the Orange lot, and rarely do more than 50hrs a month!! And as for all the anti BA lot, I have many friends on the 747-400 and 777 (with BA) who are working to the absolute max. If BA are losing cash, its not because of the flight crew - it's waterworld who are p****** it down a drain. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[Captain Airclues]

I and my colleagues are extremely grateful for the concern for BA's finances shown by our fellow PPRuNers. Even though the decline of BA would have beneficial effects on your own prospects, your suggestions to make BA more competitive show true altruism. Thank you.

Airclues

[M.Mouse]

I really find this thread quite astonishing.

There are one or two areas of BA flight crew agreements that might seem a little over the top but in general that is not the case.

To be blaming the company's woes on flight crew is lamentable and just plain wrong.

But what really troubles me is that many on this thread wish us all to work to the appalling levels of some charter operators (there and back LCAs in the middle of the night etc.), stay in cheap and cheerful hotels (the idea is that we are supposed to be able to rest) and reduce the amount we get paid!

Sorry but if I was a passenger I would like to think that the pilots were properly rested, had not done consecutive, long, gruelling and tedious night duties before making an approach in demanding conditions and I have absolutely no problem with somebody being paid well for a job that carries much responsibility. Unfortunately in our case that responsibilty is so little understood by those that don't have it.

Fortunately we do not yet live in a socialist utopia despite the best efforts of President Blair.

[Alien Shores]

So what all you lot sniping away want is every pilot, including yourselves, to be paid tuppence ha'penny a day, bring your own tent, and eat roadkill? Will that make you all happy?

Typical British attitude....

[mainfrog2]

Brakes..beer, sorry my reply is a bit down the line. To be honest I don't know, at the moment I'm on cityflyer t&c working quite hard but when we go on the hourly rate I don't know what it'll look like because we'll be moving onto the bidding system. Depending on whether I do tours or not would make a difference. At the moment there is crew on cityflyer t & c do 10 hour days with four sectors for under £15 duty pay, it's no wonder BA passed stuff over to us for a while.

[onetogo]

Gosh what a prickly lot you are !. .As the thread starter,i dont believe that i mentioned anywhere about Flight crew being responsible for the dreadful waste of money that goes on, It was just an example.. .To my fellow ppruner I can assure you that no standby's were involved on Saturday. Just sheer, pure, poor management, ridiculous rostering, and shameful waste of peoples time and company money.. .Why didnt they report early Saturday evening if it was to protect the FDP? . .Flight crew to blame..of course not, but not a single member of the crew questioned it or flagged it up, something to do with allowances maybe ?? In THIS case yes it was flight crew, how about somebody from engineering or Waterworld giving us some good examples to balance the books.

[HomerJSimpson]

Flight Rider I have absolutely no idea where you are getting your information from but it is somewhat inaccurate. Having just had a night stop removed from a 4 day trip I can assure you that I will not receive a penny in flying hour rate or allowances. In fact I will be somewhat worse off having lost those allowances and having an extra home-lgw journey added to my trip. Get your facts right and stop talking out of your ar*e.

[P22]

onetogo

Just for the record, there are NO LGW based 767 Flight Crew. All 757/767 Flight Crew are LHR based and report directly to either LHR or LGW. Are you talking about LGW based CABIN CREW here?

[ 27 January 2002: Message edited by: P22 ]</p>

[topman]

Oneto go.

An example of waste in BA Engineering?

How about £8 million worth of BA powerplant spares "lost" in the wonderfull world of "The Link" goods receiving centre. No wonder its been nicknamed "The Missing Link"

Or the loss of upwards of £85000 of CityFlyer spares within just a few months of BA insisting that CFE spares are received at The Link.

The most incredible thing was to find that BA Engineering actaully budget for loosing their spares.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

[onetogo]

P22. .Yes we talking cabin crew.......so 9 people not 3,. .sorry for misunderstanding.. .Somebody from BA tell me why they operate 3 flight deck on 2 man aeroplane ??. .went to Bermuda recently and 3 Nigels up front on 777....Normal compliment im told.. .uh oh...tin hat time !

[Land ASAP]

Reason for 3 crew on a BDA is for training as it is normally a 2 crew trip.

3rd crew member is either. .a) A safety pilot to ensure that there is enough experience on the flight deck should the Training Captain become incapacitated. OR. .b) A Route checker who is checking the crew on their annual route check.

[BusyB]

Scottie, Your comments on how easy Ultra Longhaul is are really out of touch. Havind operated LH for 5yrs and ULH for 10 yrs I can assure that the cumulative effect is fairly unpleasant and undoubtedly degrades operational performance. After two weeks leave you suddenly realise what its like to feel normal. I suggest you only comment on your own straight lines in the future!

[Notso Fantastic]

What a sad and depressing thread, and what depressing occupants! Rather than respond to ridiculous demands of allowances and pay and flying to the final penny, I think these people should be ignored, This is a NEWS forum, not an area for those 'BA wannabees, but never were' to give abuse. BA is just doing fine- the loads are good, flights are full, time to start upping the yields. If they want to think that the BA pilots are sinking this outfit, may I suggest that this forum is not the area to disabuse them!