Open Skies
 

I know the BA pilots are less than thrilled about BA's plan do start Open Skies. Do BA cabin crew have the option of flying for Open Skies?

No, recruitment is US based and not open to us.

Open Skies
 

As a whole, how do the BA cabin crew feel about Open Skies? Do they tend to stand by their pilots?

Hi! do you know if open skies will open bases in europe so we, europeans, can apply in the future???

Cabin crew are more used to work being farmed out to other projects, AML at LGW in the 90s springs to mind, so there probably isn't the groundswell of opion that there is among the flight crew - although I certainly am not speaking for each and every cabin crew member.

Put it this way, you are very unlikely to ever work with mainline crew so it won't really affect you anyway.

Sorry VS-LHRCSA but I have to beg to differ. BA cabin crew are extremely worried about the implications of Open Skies and there are plenty of opinions amongst us. If anything, we have even less protection than our flight crew as we have never had an agreement such as Schedule K so are completely open to what ever they want to do with us. In my understanding, Open Skies will be basically be in direct competion with us, both on the long haul US routes and, by reducing the need for connections, impacting on our shorthaul routes too. According to the OS website, they are also looking to eventually fly direct into London. Although no airport has been named on the site, I wouldn't be surprised if it was LHR especially with all those ex BMed slots heading our way! This is going to leave Mr Walsh with 2 airlines more or less doing the same routes, only one of those airlines is going to be much cheaper to run with cheaper flight crew and cheaper cabin crew. Who do you think will have their routes reduced? The more expensive BA or good old cheap OS?

As a member of BA crew, I've been following the OS threads from the start and although I've sometimes struggled to understand whats happening, (thanks to Human Factor for patiently explaining everything by the way!) I think it's important for cabin crew to realise just what this could mean to us as well as our flight crew.

And finally, yes I stand by our flight crew all the way as do most of my colleagues! In fact, from what I've heard, there was quite a good turn out of cabin crew to join the march on Saturday.

As they say, united we stand... etc

JSL

No flights to London
 

Simply not true! There is no mention at all of any intention to fly direct to London. This would be in contravention of Schedule K and is therefore not an option.

Check out Open Skies own website pacamack. If it's not there now, it definitely was before! Also, don't forget this is from a cabin crew point of view. As previously stated, we don't have Schedule K so technically, yes they could fly out of LHR using BA flight crew and OS cabin crew.

Edited to add: On checking it myself, all mention of the possibility of flying into London has now gone. However, trust me, it was there before as I read it myself.

JSL

OS in or out of London?
 

I think not.
What you may be thinking of is the Company's application to the US Regulator to fly into the US from "any country" in the EU and yes, as written that includes the UK.
However, Sch K means that any flying of that size aircraft in the UK (or any flying at all into or out of LHR or LGW) must fall within the BA / BALPA Scope agreement and put the pilots onto the master seniority list.
BA has never sought to avoid this obligation so won't be taking O/S into London or the UK

Blimey the managers are in here too!

900,

I understand what you are saying but as I previously stated, cabin crew are not protected by Sch. K. Whats to stop management, somewhere down the line, saying, " Look guys, we want to operate a few OS flights from LHR. How about you fly them for us and we'll crew it with OS cabin crew?" Still a vast saving for BA and Schedule K won't even come into it. We were asked how we, as a cabin crew community, feel it may affect US. At the end of the day, I don't trust this management and can see something exactly like this happening, far down the line when the dust has settled.

JSL

Hand Solo,

I know. I'm almost feeling quite honoured! :E

JSL

O/S
 

Colleague,
Don't feel honoured - absolutely no need. Just a a ground grunt keeping close to the issue 'cus I have time and I can.
I don't support BALPA's contention that this is a big issue anymore than I think the Airbus from LCY to New York is life changing for crew in the flight deck or cabin.
Fact is, BA will work to make profit where it can and can't afford to break it's agreements with crew because that hurts and can't be defended.
O/S is no trojan horse, just BALPA excited because it wants to control BA and BA says no.
No-one else should notice
900

Sorry, the 'matey' style does not convince. Manager.

'Matey'?
 

Hand Solo,
You are clearly angry.
If spitting the word "manager" makes you feel better, then so be it. My answer to that is on another thread.
There is clearly a long way to go to engage pilots (I presume you are one),cabin crew and us ground troops too.
We're on the same side and teenager hurruumphs help none of us.
The danger is coming into LHR from new entrants not from within BA IMHO

I'm not angry and I'm not spitting the word manager. It's a simple statement of fact. Your posting style reveals your identity.

You have posted almost exclusively on the BA cabin crew strike or the potential flight crew strike.

You utilise the 'we are all on the same side' line in multiple posts, whilst advocating a course of action detrimental to those you purport to help.

You deliberately and repeatedly misrepresent the positions of the unions involved, whilst posting the management positions as a true statement of fact.

You offer identical 'assurances' as appear in the management internal comms, and avoid any questions which challenge those assurances. Indeed your stock answers could have been written by the BA PR department.

You attempt to divert attention from your failure to address the issues by accusing people of behaving in a childish or militant fashion.

You exhort people to see the threat from outside (a threat that we are more than capable of dealing with) in the hope that they will take their eye off the threat within.

All these traits are identical to those displayed in the BA internal comms. Your posts read like a page straight out of their play book. For that reason, it seems obvious to me, and most others, that you are a BA manager. Now it might make you angry that we don't fall for your 'genuine nice guy' assurances, but we'll be remaining calm, rational and resolute in defending our careers.

PS Hope you get your bonus this year.;)

900,

I'm sorry but o/s IS a big issue, not just to BALPA but also to BASSA for exactly the reasons I've already given more than once. I don't see how you can compare it to the new LCY-JFK route which will be using current crew, unless there's something you know that we don't? As far as we are aware, this is a new route, not a new company! As for BA not breaking the agreements we already have in place, I'm afraid they are doing that on a daily basis which may go someway to explaining the complete lack of trust we have in them.

JSL

P.S. I might just be mere cabin crew but please don't patronise me!

I'll try not to appear patronising
 

I'm doing my best, and maybe not as well as you'd hope, but I really don't accept O/S as the threat you sell it to be.
It is no more so than the LCY / New York effort.
Working within the rules and abiding by them.
The only ones working outwith the rules is BALPA, that is why I'm posting anti.
By the way, hope everyone gets their bonus / ERP this year.
If it happens, good news for all surely?

but I really don't accept O/S as the threat you sell it to be.
 

I'm sorry to say; but it is!

How do I know? Because I work for an airline that set up a separate low cost airline that was not in any competition with its parent airline. But guess what? When the owners saw what they could get away with, they held us to ransom and have whittled most of our good T&C's away.

The fact is with so many low cost carriers around advertising very low fares and it costs pretty much the same to fly an aircraft wether or not it is being flown by a low cost operator or full service airline. The easiest way to cut your overheads is by giving your staff the bear minimum.

BA is one of the very very few airlines left that offer a decent job with decent pay for more than a teenager living at home or in a gap year.

Ground personnel have more often than not have very little idea about the lives, fears and experiences that flight crew and cabin crew endure. And as such have very little to say that is relevant to us because you have no idea what those little changes on paper look like in reality when we put them into practice.

6

900 - you claim not to be a BA manager. Do you have anything to do with Open Skies? If not, then:

1) You haven't seen the Open Skies business plan.
2) You haven't been involved in the negotiations between BA and BALPA.
3) You don't have a copy of the BA pilots' scope agreement.
4) You don't have access to the information that BA pilots receive from their BALPA reps.
5) You don't have access to the dialogue betwen BA pilots and Flight Ops managers.

In fact, the only information you can parrot is whatever is on the company intranet or comes around on the ESS mail circulars, and yet you think you have something worthwhile or meaningful to contribute to this debate. Well there's nothing like wishful thinking, but you'll excuse us if we consign your postings to the section marked 'worthless'.

How does 30% more work for 25% less pay sound?
 

Any BA cabincrew who think OS is no threat to them should be interested in this article from the Sydney Morning Herald from February this year. Jetstar is the Quantas version of OS, they just didn't get it when it was proposed to them.

This is what the Aussi equvalent of BASSA have just agree to

Qantas plans two-tier workforce

February 23, 2008

QANTAS has signalled plans to establish a two-tiered workforce that will see some full-time employees hired on less pay and lower conditions than existing staff.

After outlining its intention this week to slash a further $1.5 billion in annual costs by mid-2010, Qantas praised as "groundbreaking" its new five-year enterprise agreement with the long-haul flight attendants union.

The agreement reached last November will see new cabin crew work 30 per cent more hours on 25 per cent less pay than Qantas's existing long-haul flight attendants. It is believed the deal will save Qantas at least $40 million a year in labour costs.

Some other union bosses are dismayed that the Flight Attendants Association of Australia signed the deal. But the union has argued that it had no choice, given Qantas's plans to hire cut-rate staff via a subsidiary company whether it struck a deal with the union or not.

The deal represents the first move by Qantas to seek the increased efficiencies and lower wages that it already has achieved from its low-cost offshoot, Jetstar

Now Qantas is stepping up its message that it wants other unions to follow the example. There are suspicions that Qantas now has its second largest union, the Transport Workers Union, in its sights. The TWU, which is due to start EBA talks, did not return calls.

In a media release yesterday, Qantas trumpeted its plans - already signalled last year - to hire 2000 new cabin crew by the end of 2010.

"The competitive terms and conditions negotiated under the EBA have enabled us to create these new positions," said the airline's chief executive, Geoff Dixon.

The media release follows the message by Mr Dixon at the company's profit results briefing on Thursday that the flight attendants' agreement would "need to be the type of deal we have as we go forward with[other] unions".

"All the enterprise bargaining agreements that we're concluding have to be aimed at making sure that we're competitive, both domestically and internationally, with other airlines," he said.

"And have to be able to ensure that we can give adequate returns to our shareholders, while making quite massive investments in product and in aircraft."

The assistant secretary of the Australian Services Union, Linda White, said Qantas management needed to be aware that it would not foster any loyalty among its staff if it attempted to erode conditions, especially in a tight labour market. "If they p*ss off customers, they don't stay around and it's the same for the Australian workforce," she said.

Ms White said the move would also have an impact on Qantas's level of service.

The general manager for airlines, John Borghetti, denied Qantas was seeking to create a "two-class" workforce.

"Here is a perfect example of the company and union working together for the benefit of Qantas employees and shareholders enabling the company to grow," he said.

:eek:

Open Skies is a real threat to all BA crew. Say in a few months time this goes ahead, who's to say in a years time BA Management turn around and say.."ooh we have 3 daily flights to HKG, instead of crewing them LHR-HKG-LHR, how about using HKG crew and routing it HKG-LHR-HKG" pay local HKG rates to all crew, and what a fantastic saving" . And yet another management bonus, which incidentely are achieved differently to both flight and cabin crew.

Few months after that, JNB/CPT/SIN/WAW based crew all operating BA flights into and out of the UK but on local rates of pay. The list is endless, and if BA get their way there will be no stopping them, hence we should all be supporting BALPA both flight and cabin crew

Well actually Jetstar is not the Qantas version of OS because OS isn't meant to be a low cost airline. It's a premium service intended to compete with other premium services such as EOS and L'Avion.