Stricken BA heading for 775m pound loss
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Stricken BA heading for 775m pound loss
Stricken BA heading for 775m pound loss
Nice story!
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=103421
However, maybe BA should be doing more. Like getting rid of the Wine, salad, meat, cheese, potato, beer (oh no that’s us), champagne tasters. The guys they send halfway round the world to get all this exotic stuff for their public. Maybe they should concentrate on slashing some of the obscene salaries rolling around the upper mangement, NOT PILOTS, they deserve every penny they get. Once again too many Cowboys and not enough Indians, if I may put it that way.
Come On!!! Lets get back to reality and do something about this industry we love so very much before it all goes down the F'in toilet and stop letting the bastards ruin our lives. I have a passion for flying where is yours?
Nice story!
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=103421
However, maybe BA should be doing more. Like getting rid of the Wine, salad, meat, cheese, potato, beer (oh no that’s us), champagne tasters. The guys they send halfway round the world to get all this exotic stuff for their public. Maybe they should concentrate on slashing some of the obscene salaries rolling around the upper mangement, NOT PILOTS, they deserve every penny they get. Once again too many Cowboys and not enough Indians, if I may put it that way.
Come On!!! Lets get back to reality and do something about this industry we love so very much before it all goes down the F'in toilet and stop letting the bastards ruin our lives. I have a passion for flying where is yours?
The Dragon
Quite right! There will be no hope for us unless we get to grips now.
One small point - we are no longer allowed to refer to "Cowboys & Indians". These days the politically correct terms are "Bovine Management Executives & North American First Residents"!!!!
Quite right! There will be no hope for us unless we get to grips now.
One small point - we are no longer allowed to refer to "Cowboys & Indians". These days the politically correct terms are "Bovine Management Executives & North American First Residents"!!!!
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Froggie- now that twerp Guvnerd has been (temporarily?) taken from us, BA may breath a sigh of relief that we will not get lectured that BA lost £775 million because of pilots salaries, and how pursers should get more than pilots! Isn't the forum a quieter and better place without his insane rantings and lectures?
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"Maybe they should concentrate on slashing some of the obscene salaries rolling around the upper management, NOT PILOTS, they deserve every penny they get..."
And there we have it in a nutshell. The age old problem of perfect pilots VS pointless management. After all management do nothing and needn't be there at all. BA does have a definite problem in the area of management and that's no secret, but comments such as the above really are ignorant and frankly stupid.
During these horrendous times, we all have to bear the brunt of the carnage together and half of the problem with BA is staff in general (pilots, crew, management and non-management) with such ill-informed and ignorant views as this.
The day that pilots offer to reduce costs and stay in the same hotels as the cabin crew, take the same bus to the airport at outstations as their LGW/BHX/MAN colleagues, and generally stop expecting God-like treatment (by far the minority, I hasten to add) will be a very happy day for the company. Without that, BA will never again manage to compete at the same level as it has traditionally in this rapidly changing business.
There are too many people who think they 'deserve' jobs in BA and they need to wake up - this applies to employees across the board.
Much of the above is a sweeping generalisation and there are literally thousands of great staff in BA, but this 'we're a national institution' attitude really does need to go and is the root cause of many of the current problems.
And I’m genuinely not anti-pilot. I’m anti-idiot.
I will now get my coat.
And there we have it in a nutshell. The age old problem of perfect pilots VS pointless management. After all management do nothing and needn't be there at all. BA does have a definite problem in the area of management and that's no secret, but comments such as the above really are ignorant and frankly stupid.
During these horrendous times, we all have to bear the brunt of the carnage together and half of the problem with BA is staff in general (pilots, crew, management and non-management) with such ill-informed and ignorant views as this.
The day that pilots offer to reduce costs and stay in the same hotels as the cabin crew, take the same bus to the airport at outstations as their LGW/BHX/MAN colleagues, and generally stop expecting God-like treatment (by far the minority, I hasten to add) will be a very happy day for the company. Without that, BA will never again manage to compete at the same level as it has traditionally in this rapidly changing business.
There are too many people who think they 'deserve' jobs in BA and they need to wake up - this applies to employees across the board.
Much of the above is a sweeping generalisation and there are literally thousands of great staff in BA, but this 'we're a national institution' attitude really does need to go and is the root cause of many of the current problems.
And I’m genuinely not anti-pilot. I’m anti-idiot.
I will now get my coat.
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I think maybe once/if BA has ridden out this initial tough period we will see many things change.
This should include some drastic slashing of head office overhead, very popular discussion material on this forum and very evident to anyone who has visited waterworld.
It may also include many things which aren't often discussed on this forum, such as overtime/sick leave/overmanning and clocking off early in the ground operations areas and maybe even flight crew and cabin crew in the same ground transport.
PS: A BA employee tells me that pilots have their own personal cheeseboard. Surely a myth ??
BA management are to blame for not only feathering their own nests but also failing to tackle the rather tricky union-dominated fiefdoms.
Now donning my tin hat..........
This should include some drastic slashing of head office overhead, very popular discussion material on this forum and very evident to anyone who has visited waterworld.
It may also include many things which aren't often discussed on this forum, such as overtime/sick leave/overmanning and clocking off early in the ground operations areas and maybe even flight crew and cabin crew in the same ground transport.
PS: A BA employee tells me that pilots have their own personal cheeseboard. Surely a myth ??
BA management are to blame for not only feathering their own nests but also failing to tackle the rather tricky union-dominated fiefdoms.
Now donning my tin hat..........
Just another number
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Statements such as "The day that pilots offer to reduce costs and stay in the same hotel as the cabin crew", gives the impression that we insist on staying in better hotels than our cabin crew colleagues. I can only speak for longhaul, but we share the same hotels in Atlanta, Bangkok, Beijing, Boston, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Caracus, Calcutta, Cape Town, Chicago, Dallas, Delhi, Detroit, Harare, Hong Kong, Houston, Lagos, Madras, Mauritius, Melbourne, Mexico, Montreal, Miami, Nairobi, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Singapore (well, different towers in the same hotel), Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, to name but a few. The only place that I can recall staying apart from the cabin crew is Johannesburg, but then we do stay with the Virgin Crew.
We share transport with the cabin crew on the vast majority of occations, unless there are different on or off duty times. One exception was LHR Longhaul arrivals where we had our own transport for various reasons, but we have agreed to give this up.
We did have our own cheesetray. It was a small plastic tray with a few biscuits and three or four small pieces of cheese. We no longer get this, but sometimes the cabin crew let us have some of theirs.
I will be interested to see if the predictions of the loss are correst. We don't see many empty seats on our aircraft at the moment although they say that the yields are down. Many Far East, Indian and African flights are oversold for three weeks either side of Christmas. North Atlantic bookings are doing well, especially New York.
The reduction in the cost of fuel will have a major positive effect on the balance sheet.
I believe that the world economy will recover beyond all expectations in 2002. Let's hope that we have enough pilots when the recovery in airlines fortunes comes.
Airclues
We share transport with the cabin crew on the vast majority of occations, unless there are different on or off duty times. One exception was LHR Longhaul arrivals where we had our own transport for various reasons, but we have agreed to give this up.
We did have our own cheesetray. It was a small plastic tray with a few biscuits and three or four small pieces of cheese. We no longer get this, but sometimes the cabin crew let us have some of theirs.
I will be interested to see if the predictions of the loss are correst. We don't see many empty seats on our aircraft at the moment although they say that the yields are down. Many Far East, Indian and African flights are oversold for three weeks either side of Christmas. North Atlantic bookings are doing well, especially New York.
The reduction in the cost of fuel will have a major positive effect on the balance sheet.
I believe that the world economy will recover beyond all expectations in 2002. Let's hope that we have enough pilots when the recovery in airlines fortunes comes.
Airclues
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The problem isn't cheese and cracker trays, executive or pilot compensation. The problem is a fluctuating demand and temporary overcapacity. The question is: How does an industry with very high fixed costs (aircraft leases, gates, labor, etc) respond to wild shifts in demand. The answer is, IT CAN'T. Hence when times are good, reserves are necessary to power through the bad times. Unfortunately, layoffs/furloughes may be necessary to mitigate losses. However, rippled training costs caused by pilot furloughs don't make it cost effective to furlough unless its for at least a year or two. This is a brutal business, as we're seeing now.
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Glad to see that Roadtrip has hit the "problem" square and center....far too many airline managements' consistantly miss the mark in planning, inspite of having been down the same road many times before....one wonders WHEN they will wake up? 
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Well, well ! Shaft the cheese board ? If they only could ours. Can you imagine 5 different french cheeses in a cramped environment. At least cheddar, for its soapy look and taste is a lot more environment friendly on a flight deck !! 
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Tech...again,
I don't know what your job or company is but you are cleary jumping on a bandwagon being pushed by the anti-pilot/management lobby. I too am anti-stupidity and don't like to see money being poured away. Like, for example, 5 cabin crew meals being loaded onto a flight with only 4 cabin crew on it (I know its only a small cost but think of it multiplied over and over and it becomes a big cost), incorrect pickup times being given to the crew so that they arrive late for a full flight and then have to make their best service recovery efforts so the pax will book BA again, 2 captains being rostered to do a trip, one of them was drafted (draft = BIG money), and the one originally rostered sent home with the drafted captain doing the trip. Another captain was drafted to do the trip the sent home captain was originally supposed to do. These are only a few of the crap management actions I have come across in the last 4 days. It all adds up.
As to your assertions that pilots need to share the same accommodations as cabin crew, can you tell me where it differs? You have already been told by Airclues that in longhaul flight and cabin crew share accommodation, and now I can tell you we also share it in shorthaul (except for Manchester. Who knows why.) The reason for the different transport is that cabin crew get paid for 1 hour after engines shutdown, and flight crew only get paid half an hour. So by giving up the extra transport they are in effect working half an hour extra for no pay. I should add that in shorthaul we have never had this separate transport so we have always done the extra unpaid work (or cabin crew are being paid for time even after they have gone home - you work it out).
Now I am sensitive enough to the current situation that I am not currently banging the payrise drum, but I certainly don't think that pilots pay beig cut will help BA at the moment. When an airline is flying round with 250 odd aircraft almost full, and those pax are usually paying more than they would with other airlines, there is something fundamentally wrong with the airline. And that usually means there is something wrong with them management. After the selection of lights I had on my master caution panel yesterday flying into a notorious airport in crap weather I certainly don't think I should take a pay cut - I think I should be paid danger money. Two things are often said about pilots' pay; we are not paid for what we do, but for what we can do; and we usually earn our week/month/years salary in one flight. Yesterday was that day for me and I feel like I do deserve my salary for the rest of the month. I just wish management and people like you would stop putting us down for apparently 'just pushing buttons and doing the crossword'. Oh, and if anyone knows of a way of getting managers to say there are too many managers, please let Waterside know.
Rant over.
I don't know what your job or company is but you are cleary jumping on a bandwagon being pushed by the anti-pilot/management lobby. I too am anti-stupidity and don't like to see money being poured away. Like, for example, 5 cabin crew meals being loaded onto a flight with only 4 cabin crew on it (I know its only a small cost but think of it multiplied over and over and it becomes a big cost), incorrect pickup times being given to the crew so that they arrive late for a full flight and then have to make their best service recovery efforts so the pax will book BA again, 2 captains being rostered to do a trip, one of them was drafted (draft = BIG money), and the one originally rostered sent home with the drafted captain doing the trip. Another captain was drafted to do the trip the sent home captain was originally supposed to do. These are only a few of the crap management actions I have come across in the last 4 days. It all adds up.
As to your assertions that pilots need to share the same accommodations as cabin crew, can you tell me where it differs? You have already been told by Airclues that in longhaul flight and cabin crew share accommodation, and now I can tell you we also share it in shorthaul (except for Manchester. Who knows why.) The reason for the different transport is that cabin crew get paid for 1 hour after engines shutdown, and flight crew only get paid half an hour. So by giving up the extra transport they are in effect working half an hour extra for no pay. I should add that in shorthaul we have never had this separate transport so we have always done the extra unpaid work (or cabin crew are being paid for time even after they have gone home - you work it out).
Now I am sensitive enough to the current situation that I am not currently banging the payrise drum, but I certainly don't think that pilots pay beig cut will help BA at the moment. When an airline is flying round with 250 odd aircraft almost full, and those pax are usually paying more than they would with other airlines, there is something fundamentally wrong with the airline. And that usually means there is something wrong with them management. After the selection of lights I had on my master caution panel yesterday flying into a notorious airport in crap weather I certainly don't think I should take a pay cut - I think I should be paid danger money. Two things are often said about pilots' pay; we are not paid for what we do, but for what we can do; and we usually earn our week/month/years salary in one flight. Yesterday was that day for me and I feel like I do deserve my salary for the rest of the month. I just wish management and people like you would stop putting us down for apparently 'just pushing buttons and doing the crossword'. Oh, and if anyone knows of a way of getting managers to say there are too many managers, please let Waterside know.
Rant over.
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I've always been a BA fan, and try to remain one. But, the may get more bums on seats if their European fares weren't a complete rip-off.
I recently had to fly to the South of France. The choice was £700 out of LHR or £300 (BA/CityFlyer) out LGW for a trip to the South of France.
Some choice!
BOTH fares were an obscene and disgraceful rip-off. £300 for an hour and a half's flying time!
The West coast of the States would have been cheaper - but that's because competition works!
I recently had to fly to the South of France. The choice was £700 out of LHR or £300 (BA/CityFlyer) out LGW for a trip to the South of France.
Some choice!
BOTH fares were an obscene and disgraceful rip-off. £300 for an hour and a half's flying time!
The West coast of the States would have been cheaper - but that's because competition works!
quidquid excusatio prandium pro
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Well said Pandora, I often wonder what this is all about after a day like that. Perhaps in the great and perplexing scheme of things, it is just a way to make the beer taste that much better afterwards.
That notwithstanding, BA is a great company with an enviable history and record, the crews I have met take their jobs responsibly, and with enormous enthusiasm and pride. It is possibly the only airline in Europe able to mount a credible competitive answer to the Lufthansa machine that is currently rolling over much of Europe.
With your permission, I do have one question. Why is it that your boss, a Rhodes Scholar no less, deems it necessary to resort to the questionable tactic of taunting Hollywood celebrities? I should think his time would be more profitably occupied with matters of somewhat greater import.
That notwithstanding, BA is a great company with an enviable history and record, the crews I have met take their jobs responsibly, and with enormous enthusiasm and pride. It is possibly the only airline in Europe able to mount a credible competitive answer to the Lufthansa machine that is currently rolling over much of Europe.
With your permission, I do have one question. Why is it that your boss, a Rhodes Scholar no less, deems it necessary to resort to the questionable tactic of taunting Hollywood celebrities? I should think his time would be more profitably occupied with matters of somewhat greater import.
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Its the same hotel in GVA.
As far as taking the same bus as other crews going at similar times this seems totally sensible to me, but perhaps tech again needs to tell the MANAGERS responsible for setting up the transport and hotel contracts.
CPB
As far as taking the same bus as other crews going at similar times this seems totally sensible to me, but perhaps tech again needs to tell the MANAGERS responsible for setting up the transport and hotel contracts.
CPB
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Cabin Crew debrief times are as follows:
Longhaul outstations 30mins
Longhaul Base 45mins
Shorthaul domestic 45mins
Shorthaul International 60mins except CDG,BRU,AMS,which are 45mins
Sharing transport shouldn't be a problem
Longhaul outstations 30mins
Longhaul Base 45mins
Shorthaul domestic 45mins
Shorthaul International 60mins except CDG,BRU,AMS,which are 45mins
Sharing transport shouldn't be a problem