And that is based on?

notlangley
 

BA used to fly to Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane as well as Sydney.

They were all popular routes, but costs do matter. Hopefully if they get the costs right then BA can start expanding again and employ more cabin crew not less.
Long term job security should be important but not to BASSA.

Why would anyone not accept the new offer from BA?
 

An interesting response to a question posted to BF today - alas I cannot post on the other forum as am not Cabin Crew myself but the partner of one such Main Crew Member. The question was asked in relation to the Variable pay top up payment and BF has confirmed that the allowances (such as B2B etc) will continue to be paid as they are now but if these allowances to not amount to £6616 (main crew) for the year Nov 1 2010 - Oct 31 2011 then a top up payment to this amount will be paid. Earnings above the quoted figure are yours to keep. The rumours and scare mongering off all allowances disappearing seems to have been just that (think that goes back to the MTP which was on the previous offer which was withdrawn.

Having calculated the last years allowances earnt my partner for one would receive a top up payment of nearly £1000. (pehraps thats due to dire rostas!!!)

So what have you got to lose by not accepting the offer. I guess it needed someone to ask the question to clarify it from the "horses mouth" so to speak rather than listening to the "twaddle" on Galley FM and other sources. My partner for one was one who had believed they would have been worse off/lost out on the allowances.

Anyone else have any thoughts or comments on this new Variable Top Up Pay and allowances feel free to ask - am more than happy to paste in the full response from BF

I'm not happy with the clause that will remove the top up payment in the event of any future strike. The next one may well be fully justified after all.

The principle of such a penalty just doesnt sit well with me, it wont always be the current management team in place after all.

I suppose that is BA being reasonable to those non union members, who backed BA and have left Unite and signed a contractual no strike deal with financial penalties.

Snas #493
 

I appreciate your point, but would ask whether it's worth rejecting the offer over one point of (theoretical) principle. If you have no immediate intention of going on strike, then the point at issue is pretty much irrelevant at the moment. If you scroll back a bit you'll find a link to a Bloomberg article I posted which basically says BA staff have a roughly 0% chance of winning anything by indulging in further industrial action.

My view on this is that the logical, rather than emotional, response to adopt is:

1. Accept the agreement, warts and all.

2. Find some representatives who are, well, more representative of staff to replace the ones you currently have. The main problem right now is that it's obvious how little (ie zero) respect current representatives command with BA's management.

3. Determine with those new reps what you would most like to change in the agreement.

4. Wait till BA's financial circumstances improve, which they will sometime! At that point BA will be more revenue-focussed and not so cost-focussed as now. There will come a time when they want staff to agree to something, at which point you can say "we'll agree to X but we want Y". Assuming you have colleagues who share your view on the linking of strike action and removal of top up payments, that can be the "Y" you ask for.

From the outside looking in, the best (least bad?) course of action right now is undoubtedly to accept the deal on offer and not try to negotiate it any further.

It is unlikely that BA will resume MEL services as the result of its joint services agreement with Qantas has been that its brand identity has been practically wiped out in Australia and substantially diminished in South East Asia.
BA is now being seriously outplayed by Qantas and Asian carriers between its remaining Far East points and London as these offer higher frequencies and a much wider spread of services through the day including eastbound daylight services. BA's cabin crew rest agreements make it very difficult to offer these as their inabiliy to serve meals other than at the beginning and end of flights mean along period of relative famine in the cabin, something orientals in particular find it difficult to live with.A by-product of this is higher costs through lower aircraft utilisation as the eastbound aircaft have long layovers so that they can operate back overnight.This is another factor in their higher cost levels than their competitors on eastern services which goes some way to explaining their apparent lack of enthusiasm for developing business in this fast growing but often low yield area.

Thanks for that VERY informative background Skylion. As I have said before (too many times) the die is long cast and BA is at the end of it's natural life span. It has lost market share which would take years and high cost to recover. They have neither in hand.

I say this with no delight but simply as I see it. BA will not be in the form that it is now within five years. IRRESPECTIVE of the outcome of this dispute, because the mistakes were made 10 and 20 years ago.

In this regard, the problem is very similar to the financial crisis that finally blew up in 2008. It was started 20 years earlier and it was stonkingly obvious that it was going to happen. By the time it did blow up - those who created it were all safely retired and on the golf course. The ones who were fiddling at the time of the blow out - were small fry and just the children of the ones who made the problem. Sure, they were doing stupid things - but only because that's how it had always been in the 5/10/20 years they had been in the financial business.

Mankind is not so clever as to make lots of new mistakes - they just make the same mistake in different ways.
Game over.

PAXboy: With all due respect I believe your post arrives to a conclusion that may be based more on personal opinion rather than market driven actions.

BA's loss of market share is significant, but directly attributable to, for the most part, having within its ranks a small extreme and militant part of its Cabin Crew work force. BA is close, and only has to be in a position to declare victory over this disruptive cancer to be able to reassure the flying public that there flights are no longer endangered by the actions of this militant group and they can regain the trust of the flying public.

Hardly that simple. There is a reason why BA has retained the advocacy of it's investors. Its because, due to BA's rather impressive actions, and its taking advantage of BASSA's mistakes in this episode, its not so much "Game over"..with the start of Mixed Fleet, etc., its rather more "Game On".

Notlangley:

During the Malone et al., v BA action where BASSA attempted to restrain BA from implementing the one-down staffing changes there was testimony by BASSA members that seemed to leave the judge a tad stunned.

BASSA's sense of entitlement regarding having a say in the day to day business operations of the airline was incredible. Even more so when you consider that we are speaking of individuals such as Duncan Holley and Liz Malone. Hardly business executive material.

Skylion.
I think you will find that the rest requied on long range flights is set by the CAA and not something insisted upon by the union.

It may well be that other airlines flying under the flags of other countries may work to different agreements but I am sure that most have a similar system. On long flights there is a legal requirement to have a certain amount of bunk rest, depending on the flight length, in order that the flight can legally be that long.

I think it is great that you all take an interest in BA and it's crew but I find the level of mis-imformation very high. Sometimes it seems like people just think something and then type it out as if it is fact, not really having enough detailed knowledge of the subject to do so.

I believe the same comment could be made for BOTH threads.

DiplomeWhich is why I said that I have held this view for a long time and the overall destiny of BA has very little to do with this particular dispute. Certainly, their failure to manage their own staff is a key facet of their downfall but by no means the only.

I do not think that the satisfactory resolution of this dispute (which I anticipate soon) will make any long term difference to their prospects. Yes, it will be 'Game On' for a while but companies rise and fall very slowly. I repeat that I do not say the above with any delight and do not work in the airline biz. I have worked in many varied fields of commerce and govt over the last 33 years (in multiple countries and for multinationals) and I am simply applying what I have seen everywhere else to BA. Perhaps they will buck the rest of the world and be the one that climbs back on top.

Diplome,
You are quite right. Many people that post on the cabin crew forum, work on the ground for BA or another airline or fly for another airline etc. or may just want to put a particular slant on things and as such incorrect information often gets posted on there too. I think it is a fault within all people in general, whether they fly or not, to post on forums with infomation they think is right even though they don't actually know it to be.

That's probably why this forum is called Professional Pilots Rumour Networks, because alot of what we read is just rumour. I do however try myself to make a distinction between what I know to be correct information and what I have heard as a rumour. Just having read the last couple of pages on this particular thread gave me the impression that people write things as fact when they actually don't know that to be true.

I certainly did not want to stop you making any comments because I do think it is very valuable to hear all of your points of view and I do hope that when all of this IA is over you are all brave enough to continue to fly with BA again. I value all our regular passengers and being on Eurofleet I often carry regular passengers over and over again and know some of you very well.

Thanks.

PAXboy:

Ancient Observer has also posted concerns regarding BA's lack of leadership within its management ranks and also maintains that without changes in this area BA solving of its BASSA problem will have little effect in the long run.

Having been inspired by comments here and having my curiosity aroused I've done some searching regarding how BA arrived at this juncture and must agree that the leftover culture of being a state owned company still permeates certain areas and must be resolved.

However, I am encouraged at some of the actions being taken by BA management at the moment and am cautiously hopeful that the Board is looking to assert itself and drag this company into the 21st century.

One small step that I believe will have substantial downline positives is BA's insistence that Mixed Fleet will operate separately from present crew with no mingling.

Having mismanaged their relationship with BASSA for so long it seems that BA finally realize that the only solution is to finally take steps to marginalize the negative influence of BASSA's more militant members on their workforce.

Emptiness, despair, anger
 

Emptiness, despair, anger - a customer perspective

I was due to fly to holiday yesterday on a "package" holiday to Rome. It was not with BA.
The flight was cancelled with no reason given, while we were in the departure lounge, (the desk in the departures lounge thought it was due to lack of crew, but no "formal" reason was given).

I had forgotten the emotions involved when one's carefully planned and much looked-forward to holidays are brutally cancelled at no notice. The emptiness, despair and anger were all very strong. (I could go on and on about the emotions). Much stronger than I had remembered.

The BA CC who are still supporting this strike appear to have no concern whatsoever for their customers. They wanted strikes over Christmas, they went out on strike over the UK school holidays, and now they want another strike.

I'm just one family person. Will the potential strikers ever think of the many thousands of families and other people that they are seeking to disadvantage with their incredibly inward looking calls for strikes?............especially when they don't appear to even know what they are striking about, other than asking some very highly paid supervisors to push a trolley?

Some of the strikers say that they do care about their customers, and are striking for better service levels.

I am now completely clear in my mind that that is total and utter codswallop.

I think I've been relatively neutral in this dispute. I've blamed BA as much as CC. No longer. Whilst BA managers created the history that bassa could "run" the airline, all of that must now stop. bassa will end up with the same fate as the NGA. (I'll leave out the history lesson about the NGA)

Ancient Observer:

I'm sorry your holiday was spoiled. How odd that no explanation was given.

I will happily admit that I dismissed all the early "We're striking for our customers" and "Its about maintaining service levels" rhetoric very early on after learning of the infamous "War of the Hot Towels".

Service cannot improve until BASSA is marginalized. They will fight any and all improvements unless there is a "trade" which, as they demanded in the hot towels case, amounts to millions of dollars in costs for the company.

Hope you and your spouse are okay and that you find a solution/alternative to this disruption.

The judge's eye-rolling comment on BASSA calling Nigel Stott in to criticise the removal of a crew member stood out for me: "For health reasons, Mr Stott has not participated in a flight subjected to the new regime".

Then they wondered why they lost!

:ouch:

Thankyou Betty Girl but I do in fact know BA and what goes on rather well.
BA's cabin crew rest periods are generally way above CAA requirements and are configured in such a way- ie occupying all but the first couple and last of hours of long haul flights,- that mid flight meals are not possible,notably in World Traveller.Too often "To Fly to Rest" seems to be the guiding principle, and what I say about the resultant difficulties with 12 hour plus daylight flights are as I describe.
Another nonsense you will be familiar with on short haul is the refusal to treat a transit through Heathrow just like any other aiport and to require minimum layover times there which make it impossible to roster short haul aircraft, pilots and cabin crew to operate through it and stay together through the day's work. All 3 are rostered separately which results in massive disruption and cancellations once bad weather or whatever interrupts the schedules.The earlier in the day the problem occurs the greater the damage. The extended cabin crew LHR transist also mean that 4 sector days become impossible, thus generating more night stops=more crew=higher costs. One result is that other than as a feeder to long haul BA can not make money on nearly all of short haul despite the massive investment in aircraft etc it requires and would be well shot of it."Go" was probably the answer, failing which franchises which provided a BA branded operation at no cost to BA.

Skylion - I can confirm that the crew rest on long haul flights is way above anything ever required by the UK CAA.

On the short haul foul-up at lhr, there was much discussion of this in detail in the "combined" thread a few months ago.

Skylion,

This sort of rostering practice hapens at LGW too, despite us having less restrictions. We can report for a 2 day 6 sector trip and throughout that trip change aircraft and flight crew 3 times. Ironically, the flight crew we start with are often also on a similiar 2 day 6 and we'll bump into them again as we all check out at the end of the trip. Why don't they keep us together? It's never made much sense to me but then again, very little about BA's scheduling system makes sense! (Sore subject at the moment as trying to adjust from my run of late and deep night flights that finished at 0720 yesterday to the 0605 report for a 2 day 6 starting tomorrow...:uhoh:)

jetset lady:

Interesting post.

Is there a perceived benefit to the way BA is rostering now? Something I'm not seeing?

Good luck on readjustment. It must make life interesting at times. :)

Skylion.
You are not correct in alot of what you say. As Jetset lady says the way cabin crew are rostered is alot do do with the fact that pilot rostering is done by a different department. Pilots use a different system of rostering, a bidline system, which in itself is very expensive and needs a high number of schedulers envolved but that is another matter. The two departments seem not to liase with each other as mentioned by Jetset lady. You would have to ask someone in schedualling why I would not want to guess the answer.

BA aircraft nightstop because it suits the schedual and because it would be impossible to park all the aircraft at LHR (as seen during the strike.) It has nothing to do with the way cabin crew are rostered or any agreements we have. Sometimes the union agreements are actually less restricting than the CAA scheme rules.

I really think it important for you to actually be sure of what you are saying and not make up stuff to suit the point you are trying to make.

You will loose any credibility you may have if you keep giving inacurate infomation out.

A tad harsh. It is possible to disagree, or exchange ideas, without getting too personal on this forum. We do it all the time.

When the discussions get a bit too...let's say "energetic" our Moderators have no problem reining the thread in.

We are customers, stockholders, etc., but not children and it is not beyond many of the participants capabilities to examine an issue and participate in reasoned exchanges.

As for this statement:
That accurate observation was made by Skylion. Jetset lady quoted part of his post in her comments.

Betty Girl: Whether you find what I have said to your liking or not I can assure you it is all accurate and should worry you as it is making BA uncompetitive from the costs, schedule/frequency(long haul to the Far East) and operational integrity point of view.On shorthaul for example, Easyjet, FlyBE and most , if not all, others roster the aircraft and both sets of crew together on the day although all 3 work different rosters and are just together for the day. The Easyjet normal crew pattern will be 4 sectors during the first part of the day for the first crew and a further 4 sectors by the aircraft for the second part of the with a new crew . Oh ,- and there won't be any early start or late finish payments either. On long haul there is no reason why BA should not operate westbound daylights ex Far East by introducing earlier departures eastbound to enable pre-midday departures on the return leg ex HKG, SIN in particular. They just choose not and not to increase frequencies, partly because of this service problem. As result CX are now 4 x daily on HKG and BA down from 3 to 2. A similar story exists in SIN where SQ now out perform BA on frequencies by operating daylights, ditto TG ex BKK. Sad but true.

Skylion.
At no time have I meant for you to get upset with my correction of what you have said. It is just that I notice that some of the reasoning behind what you suggest is not accurate.
I am not going to guess as to why BA roster cabin crew and pilots differntly and by different departments but for you to suggest that you know why and to type it out on a forum and have people congratulate you for informing them so well, is a touch anoying when it is obvious to many that you are just guessing.
I was just merely explaining that your assertion that it is cabin crew agreements that cause aircraft to nightstop was incorrect as too was your reasoning that the union insist on bunk rest when it is the CAA. I can assure you that the reason BA operate the current schedual out of Hongkong has nothing to do with cabin crew agreements. It is either for commercial reasons or because those are the only slots they are allowed.

I am a loyal BA cabin crew member who worked throughout the strike and I am happy for our agreements to be altered and updated. You only however have to go on to other threads written by pilots to see that even some of them are unhappy about totally being rostered to the max that the CAA schemes allow. There is a current thread in 'terms of endearment' by easyjet pilots with alot of them complaining about their rosters, which is an airline that you chose to quote as a good example of rostering.
As mentioned by Jetset lady at LGW where it is possible to roster pilots and cabin crew the same it is still not done. But even I as BA employee do not know the reason for that.

Diplome,

That's a really hard question and one you'll probably regret asking! I'll try to answer but this is only from my experience as crew, both in a charter airline that has operated a mixed flying programme for years and at BA, which has come to the party relatively recently. (I'm not included the earlier mixed fleet at LHR as they would have had different T&C's of which I know nothing about.) I also have no experience in flight ops or scheduling so there may be factors I know nothing about!

In my point of view, no. There may be initially as at LGW, they are certainly utilising the cabin crew to the max but it's all in a bit of a haphazard fashion. We jump around all over the place between earlies, lates and long haul. There's no rhythm, if that makes sense. We also jump around from aircraft to aircraft (bare in mind we are checked out on 3 types, with 7 variants. 737-400, A318, A319, A320, A321 and 777, 777 ER) We generally have 2 days off after long haul but can also do 6 days on short haul and only 1 day off on the end. The minimum days off in a month are 9, unless you take leave. Then the minimum days off will drop, depending on how many leave days you take. And finally, they also mix short haul and long haul in the same run. So like I say, in BA's eyes, it's great as we really are utilised to the full.

On the downside, we are tired. Very tired. And sickly too. The majority of crew are somewhere in the sickness policy process although I have managed to get out of it for now. We never get time to re-adjust. And because of the constant swapping around of flight and cabin crews, we rarely get to settle into a routine with a particular crew. I dread to think of the number of times that someone has asked me for the Captains name and I have had to shamefacedly reply, "Erm...Bob?...Fred?...George?...Chuck?...No, hang on I've got it. It's Susan!" That's awful but over a quick 2 day 6, that's the way it becomes. I know them but can't remember who's on what sector. And once we've figured out who the pilots are, we have to get to grips with what aircraft we're on. Over 7 sectors and 3 days, we can operate 737, 737, A319, 737, A319, A319, 777. It gets to the point that if another crew member asks for ice, you reply "No problem. It's over there...no it's not, it's down there...or up there...I don't know! :{ (We do make sure we know where the important stuff is on each flight. It's the little stuff that leave us scratching our heads!)

Luckily, as LGW is a small base and we obviously have all of the best pilots and cabin crew down here, it's not as bad as it could be! ;)

I think what I'm trying to explain with that long, weary and unintended whinge fest is that while this type of rostering may pay off in the short term, in the long term, I feel they are burning us out. In my previous airline, we were worked hard but in a more structured way that gave as a chance to adjust to each change of routine. Then again, they'd had many years of practice to get it right and we had a union that knew when to stand strong and when to give a bit back.

With BA, it feels like they haven't thought through how some of the scheduling agreements actually work in practice. Sadly, here we don't have the sort of mature representation that will sit with management and have a sensible, constructive discussion on what is and what isn't working, so as far as the management are concerned, everything is tickety boo. How long we can carry on like this, I don't know. :(

Does that make any sense?

Jetset Lady:

Not at all. Certainly not when I have a member of Cabin Crew taking the time to truly explain to me what they are dealing with regarding rostering issues.

An interesting statement. I know of a CEO that closes each of his staff meetings when they have made changes in procedure with the statement "It's done and on paper...but paper doesn't bleed, our employees do"..and I mean EVERY meeting that involves changes to conditions or procedures. He happens to have a great relationship with his unions and his workforce because he understands that companies must be willing to be flexible and adjust when what looked great at the meeting isn't transferring in the real world.

Hopefully, when these troubles are resolved and BA truly takes control of their future we will see more of this approach.

As for being Gatwick crew, you must realize you have many loyal BA customers who are huge fans of not only how you conduct yourselves, but how you conduct your flights. Gatwick is truly becoming the "Watch us spoil you" brand in BA.

Thank you again for taking the time to respond to my question. Your engagement is truly appreciated.

Jetset Lady.
Thank you also from me because that was a very good answer. Alot of people don't understand what the job entails and you have explained the rostering at LGW very well.
I seem to have managed to upset people for explaining why what they said was wrong or inaccurate and I apologise to anyone that was upset by my direct manner.

Jetset Lady,

Can I echo Diplome's comments and say that your contribution is much appreciated. Your post does at least give some idea of the hard work that you put in and I have to say that I could not imagine doing that sort of job long-term as you would surely burn out!

But please tell me, do you think that is the plan? I have heard it say that one of BA's biggest mistakes was in trying to make a career out of what is essentially a short-term job that people do in order to travel and enjoy the perks but ultimately leave and settle down. BA have created a career structure out of it, wrongly thinking that this would engender loyalty and that experienced staff would provide better service. What has happened instead is that people who should have really moved on have then found that they are unable to earn anything like the money they earn as Senior Cabin Crew in BA. They therefore stay on in a job that they find they increasingly do not enjoy and therefore become disillusioned and the whole plan backfires.

Do you think there is any truth in this? And if so, does the new fleet make more sense in the long run? And certainly for we passengers, as I think the general view is that the Gatwick crew are altogether more pleasant and are generally streets ahead of the Heathrow crew in terms of customer service

I personally would prefer not to fly with people like Miss M and Ava Hannah (but then I think they now seem to have retreated to BASSA HQ or LA or whatever!!)

Anyway, many thanks once again for representing your views so well.

Betty girl:

Please don't feel as if you have "upset" anyone on this forum. Others will correct me if I'm misrepresenting the normal course of our exchanges here but we disagree from time to time, and will exchange links to information that we are basing our opinions on, learn from each other...but there is very little "upset" on this thread when it comes to discussing issues.

I might suggest that your statement..

might be qualified with an "In my opinion".

I believe most of us appreciate your visits to our thread and I don't believe you have truly "upset" anyone. They just may have a different opinion. :)

..and thank you for working through the strikes and advocating a more progressive BA. Well done.

Thanks for the kind words regarding our base at LGW. We may be somewhat insignificant in the world of BA, (although I get the feeling that we've finally got ourselves noticed) and we certainly don't always get it right. I can think of numerous occasions when I have done or said something that still make me cringe! But the one thing you will find at LGW from top to bottom, left to right and throughout every department is a fierce sense of pride so to hear that the people that matter like flying with us is a huge boost!

Mocamp,

It's strange you should mention that. While watching my rubber ducks bobbing around in my pre bedtime bath, exactly the same thought crossed my mind. It'll be a shame if that is what they are intending, especially considering our already lower cost base. I think an airline needs a certain amount of "career" crew to pass on their experience and provide some stability and grounding to the ever enthusiastic, gap year Tiggers bouncing around the cabin! Good long term and short term crew compliment each other perfectly.

Jetset Lady
 

Oh! How I wish, but not an option at the age of this Tigger. :{

Sorry for the interruption to normal service. Now back to the thread...

That comment creates a rather wonderful visual.

One of the interesting results of this recent "process" is that Gatwick Cabin Crew have made themselves heard and they have declared themselves as owning the BA brand for quality service.

As SLF it is interesting that you have serious customers and corporate groups that are taking the time to truly look at the difference in service between the two centers, and Heathrow, who have rather (in my opinion) been rather pompous in their approach to Gatwick, et al., are finding themselves viewed as lacking.

I do agree..a mature Cabin Crew resource is essential for BA to draw on as they bring in new talent. However, it must be a driven leadership, with focus on the positive of what BA offers, and not what negative message has been issued by a rather disjointed leadership.

As a stockholder and client I can tell you that I agree wholeheartedly with BA's decision to segregate their Mixed Fleet from Heathrow crew...but I can also state that I would not have the same opinion regarding Gatwick.

Please understand that I'm fully aware that there are an amazing amount of motivated individuals at Heathrow, but it is going to take some time to solve the problem of the dark cloud they are dealing with...sad that so few can smear so many.

Diplome I certainly hope that BA recovers but time, experience and history are against them. When I read further in the thread today:
SkylionThen you know it's serious! I was unaware of the no meals in the middle because I have avoided BA on 10hr+ sectors for 20 years. I did a couple of NYCs in WT and one to JNB in WT+ and they were reasonable.

But I gave up on BA after the Dirty Tricks effort. They did not need to do that and I only use them as last choice. Which is a pity because they are a good airline. Again, it gives me no pleasure to say these things - but BA is in their last phase.

I find it amazing that anyone would feel a need to explain or defend their working arrangements and relationship with their employer to a group who, for whatever reason, feels it is their business to know, question, comment and pass judgement on what is in fact none of their business.

Considering that included amongst the posters on this thread are pax, CC professionals and shareholders/clients then, in my opinion, it is their business. Far from amazing it seems quite normal to me.

I think it's a bit unfair to pin the " blame" for BA's Melbourne withdrawal on heritage Cabin Crew, they're being blamed for everyting else as it is.
BA's most recent withdrawal from many Antipodean destinations (e.g. AKL, BNE, PER, and latterly MEL) started well over a decade ago...in part to a combination of poor aircraft utilisation if the flight was a terminator (the aircraft ends up sitting on the ground at destination for 8 hours plus due to LHR slots) or poor load factors if instead of sitting on the ground the flight shuttled onwards...certainly < 100 pax on a SYD-MEL shuttle was not unusual, not good use of a 747.

BTW there are those who think BA only reinstated MEL as a terminator for a few years because of the origins of the BA CEO at the time :ok:

Unite/BASSA will lobby BA shareholders today...though their use of the typical rhetoric will probably not help their pitch.

British Airways Union Asks Investors to Press Walsh for Deal - BusinessWeek

Matthew Carr (sp.?), described as a retired BA cabin crew member, was just on Sky News and could have done a better job of representing the Cabin Crew's issues. Using the term "Little Willy" did not do much for his credibility.