Well done, Willie Walsh, for showing that he has the resolve to sort out this infernal mess.

Well done, BA non-CC staff, for calling potential strikers' bluff and offering to keep the company flying.

Someone quoted Tennyson earlier on this thread. I think that this is very apposite right now:

Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Now we need to see who will blink first; my money is on the unions.

I`m a 767 captain and have just voluntered.I fancy going back to SIN or HKG - would make a change from the east coast in winter!

I'm signed up!

Obviously for 'one out, standover and one back' though! :}

Should be fun watching the 5 man pickets on the way to the cabin. At least, in the event of the classic 'Airplane' line, 'can anyone fly a plane and hasn't eaten the fish?' we should be ok.

:ok:

might give some of the militant cc something to think about when customer satisfaction scores go up , volunteers always better than pressed men!

I have such a wonderful,proud feeling about BA.

I will be able to wear my uniform with pride again.
There will be no strike.

The "novice" crew will probably be a lot more fun to work with too.

Don't worry about them; I think that BAA will suspend the airside passes for all striking cabin crew members. Aren't computers wonderful?

Meanwhile, we have heard next to nothing from the usual pro-BASSA apologists since the meeting at Kempton Park. A Lurker did make a half-hearted effort, but not a word from any of the others.

I'm in.

MrB (working for my wife, just like home!):)

I see someone mentioned "customers". What a nice thought! ;)

Great to see such support for the Company - shame BASSA seems to lack any at all.

so what do the cabin crew think to willie walshs' letter asking everyone to train as cabin crew should the strike go ahead? This is desperate action which won't fix the problem in the long term!
Will BA employees stand united?

If by that you mean United with the militants and malcontents in Unite and BASSA then no. Not in a month of Sundays. I'll do whatever it takes to get flights away. Whatever outdated 70's pseudo-Marxist rhetoric is thrown at me.

MrB

May I ask your position in the company? I am sure many will not share your views. Will you be able to do your own job in the meantime?

On the contrary.

If it allows BA to run at least part of the schedule while it sacks the BASSA militants, I think the action will be highly fruitful.

A Lurker said

Well the thread over on your forum has already gone to 6 pages, but largely I don't think there is any "uproar" because the impact has not sunk in yet. Judging by some of the math displayed on the BASSA forum (apart from yours, but lets face it you lifted that little example from post 1897 by Top Bunk) this won't be for a while:ok:

Do you believe everything BASSA tell you?

The strike ballot is 4 weeks long, after that BASSA must give 7 days notice I make that Monday the 1st March for the first possible strike, any bets on the punchy catch line this time round?

Miss M said

one of your reps has admitted as much on the 17th Jan at 22.30:ok:

By the looks of things, there is an aura of panic on another forum.

They are claiming the volunteering won't work, and it shows how little these people actually know as well as showing them up as rather arrogant.

If I went into all of it, it would take me the best part of an hour to write it all out, but the most common things from "over there":

It will take over 2 weeks to train the volunteers Not correct
The flights won't be safe Not correct
Worried about service standards Laughable
Volunteers won't be able to deal with medicals Not correct (it's part of SEP)
The volunteers should be worried about their own jobs as could be proven to be dispensable Think it's the cc that need to be worried about that one as the volunteers may do a better job altogether.


I could go on, but I won't bore you all with the petty screaming.

There are also calls for lobbying the government and politicians in general. Several have contacted their MPs about the volunteer email.

Amazing, no? Guessing they're getting scared now that it shows WW has bigger "cashews" than they thought.


Gg

Crewing aircraft with volunteers won't happen and even less them leaving the ground. Do you think it would be safe? It would take a long time to get all of those people through training! Pilots could be responsible for doors but do they have any medical training? Any survival training?

A chock-a-block 747 leaving LHR with a couple of pilots and some office people from Waterside. Don't even go there.

If you do get off the ground, enjoy your trips.

Will the managers be taking part and training as cabin crew? Or are their jobs too important?

Volunteers
 

It shouldn't take too long to train current or ex aircrew as Flight Attendants. We should even see an improvement in the service.

I'm not too sure about seeing 'fincastle84' in an apron, though!

http://www.augk18.dsl.pipex.com/Smileys/pasta.gif

Miss M
 

Over 4000 cabin crew volunteered to work over the last strike:ok:

BA only have a handfull of profitable routes at the moment, how many Cabin crew will it take to crew those flights?

I know the answer, do you?:ok:

I'm somewhat disturbed by the views on this from so called "professional" pilots.

Why do you want to fly on aircraft crewed by people with ZERO experience?

Be happy knowing that if there was a fire mid-Atlantic, or one of you had a heart attack, it would be dealt with by someone who barely knew their way around the aircraft?

Not To Mention
 

That to be issued with an airside pass you require a CRB check which takes around four weeks - oh and to operate as Crew into the USA your going to require a Visa issued at the American Embassy in London - never mind I'm sure Willie has thought all of this through and there will be 000's manning the doors :ok: