At the point of not sounding politically correct could it be that BA employs more women on the ground ?

I have known several ground staff 'mothers' who call in sick on a whim ! women generally have more days off sick than men and as far as I know many airlines use say servisair etc on the ground who's sickness figures are their own problem.

Also, I have to point out that BA have been very good in the past at looking after people with genuine long term sickness, to the point of keeping jobs open if it looks like the employee will be able to return in the future. They also have been known to continue to pay full salries after the 6 month cutoff if the employee can sit in an office and do some photocopying or whatever.
There aren´t many companies that would bother nowadays.

The problem would appear to lie perhaps with Rod having no understanding that crew should not fly with colds, or lack of a detailed and meaningful analysis of sick days among employee groups.

The comparison means nothing and should be treated as such, unless benchmarked against a comparable company such as bmi or Virgin. Without a more detailed breakdown we are all wasting our breath trying to blame slackers at Ascot (from a mere rumour) or female ground staff (as one poster mentioned above), since the figures are otherwise meaningless.

I would be more worried about Rod's apparant lack of understanding of the business which he heads, which could lead to the poor treatment of the real long-term sick, where BA have traditionally been good. I for one would not want to be in a position where I felt pressurised to operate, while suffering a cold, as mentioned above in the example.

I think everyone here seems to have entirely missed the point,the 16.9 days average is exactly that,i and 90% of the staff take 2,3 or 4 days sick a year with honest problems.

Its the 10% that are taking 30,40,50 days sick >>> Theres a guy on my section with Depression did 17 days work all last year ( to April 04 )