BA hero wants to quit
 

The Cpt John Coward who sucessfully landed the stricken 777 on the 17th of January 2008 has hit the front page of the todays Sunday Mirror (27th April)John has stated he's had his pay cut and wants to leave.Two pilots in two days on the front pages of different nationals, something is seriously wrong.

He is not a captain.

He has not had 'his pay cut'.

You are with out doubt one of that unpleasant breed of BA employee who takes every opportunity to denigrate our already badly damaged reputation.

Reputation
 

Mr Mouse, what is left of BA's reputation is being rapidly destroyed all on it's own. I am merely commenting that pilots at BA are so unsupported in their workplace that they feel they must speak out in public. THat takes courage and should be commended.

Making up fanciful claims of a culture of racism in order to promote yourself at the expense of your colleagues doesn't take courage. Just cynicism.

Always been a credible source of news and current affairs... :}

BA Managers
 

Oh the BA PR department are up late this saturday evening. It's amazing how you can be out on the town, and still work via your PDA. I don't know about the SUnday Mirror being highly regarded but I do think the Independent has a very affluent, professional and respected base of readers. The shock for BA is that 2 nationals on two days running have had pilots speaking out.

The picture on the front page of the Sunday Mirror seems to show Captain Peter Burkill. I may be mistaken.

Burkhill
 

Journo, well spotted indeed I stand corrected, Peter Burkhill Cpt speaks out. Hey you never know, SFO John Coward might be tomorrow. This must be the biggest PR disaster ever, BA can't even keep the man they paraded to the worlds media on side. They must of seriously pissed him off, but then he might of felt more confidence knowing that his colleague Doug Maughan had already done so. Interesting pattern developing here, both of them being 777 captains........ Conspirators out there, theories please...

Anyone got a link to the story please? I can't find the article (yes, blond, female and tired...)

BA Manager, we don't know whether he's "spoken out" so far, based on the limited information available ATOW. All I've seen is the Mirror's front page picture and headline; I don't know the paper's full story or source, and can't begin to make any judgements on its credibility. Perhaps we should wait for a little more information before rushing to judge?

Now there's a rare thing for a journalist to say......

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/ - but nothing at all about any BA crew that I can find. BAMANAGER hallucinating again?:confused:

If it's in a Sunday red top it must be true, could be underlying currents? was the T7 incident pilot in command error? is he wanting a pay off for his story?

There are so many areas of the media trying to bring scorn and ridicule on BA, we are great in knocking ourselves. BA is one of the top airlines of the world always has been and will be even when all the LCC's go belly up.

I don't work for BA but would not chosse any other airline for a scheduled trip, there are not many airlines in the world who have the number of staff with over 20 years of service as BA........so they cannot be that bad!

BA Manager who or what are you?
 

The question is BA manager for someone who bad mouths the company so much and doesn't even know John Coward is not a captain. I have one question what exactly do you do in the BA?? or are u wannabe or a one of those paper filers they let go??.

Seriously If you are still working in BA with such a negative attitude maybe you should find employment with another company.

If it is true he has been suspended maybe the AIB have found out something or maybe he thinks he deserves a pay rise and the best way of going about it is to go to the papers!!!. Some sad individuals do!!!. After all yes what happend was a miracle and amazing but thats what he is trained and payed to do.

Also the remainder of pilots are getting vocal because the court case result will be due soon. They want as much publicity behind them as possible so that they will have the public support when they strike. Anyone can see that!!!

I know personally or have flown recently with 8 of the cabin crew from BA038 and they have said they where and still still are supported back to work with the company one of the crew has decided to leave. Since the flight crew are more highly thought of I doubt they haven't been offered the same amount of support

What a load of sh1t. Grounded? He's been flying again for months and has a full roster next month? Pay cut? Nothing of the sort. Apart from the ridiculous claims that his pay has halved (it hasn't and there is no mechanism to do that), he appears to be upset that he isn't getting flying allowances. Errr hello? Why would you get flying allowances and if you are not flying? Nobody else does. Looks like financially he has been handled in exactly the same way as every other BA pilot. Or perhaps the Mirror believes that Peter should be made an exception and remunerated differently to any other BA pilot.

It's in the Sunday Mirror because they have been slighted by this. They built him up as a hero to sell newspapers and now it transpires he was not quite as much of a hero.

None of us can judge whether he 'froze' or not but generally in an emergency situation it is better for the F/O to fly the aircraft so the Captain can manage the emergency. That appears to be what happened. Of course the newspapers will all think that the Captain should be flying the aircraft but most reporters haven't got a clue about operating an airliner.

There is a point about why he hadn't descended to a lower level earlier in the flight when it was so cold but situations are rarely simple when things go wrong and that has been thrashed out already with many showing that the fuel temperature never readuced to a point where they had to descend. But then there is only one fuel temperature measurement location, etc. etc. ...

BAMANAGER's Occupation
 

I,too, am intrigued about BAMANAGER. Are you a BA Manager? Are you a BA Pilot? Are you a BA Office worker? Are you BA airport ground staff? Are you BA Cabin Crew. In fact do you work for BA at all?

If you want to protect your anonymity there is no need to be too specific but I am sure there are a lot of Ppruners who would love to know your provenance.

Beerdrinker
Retired BA pilot

You can't help having the occasional twit putting his 2 pence in during a in house training course after a crash like this. As hurtfull as it may be ( and it must be ) , it's unavoidable. Nothing different happens on Prune I have to say.
.
I'm not sure I'd like to have my face and life spread on Sunday newspapers and I can't imagine EK and Branson being too moved by an application of that kind, specially one that attracts so much media attention.
Difficult to imagine Cpt Burkill would do something that stupid. But then again, maybe he did ?
The sooner the final report comes out, the better it will be for everyone, Ppruners included.

BA guys, tell me; the way I understand it is, : He'd like to be on full pay while on stress leave ??? Is this it ?? Isn't there some kind of salary top up system provided by your loss of licence insurance when temporarely grounded ??

BA Pilot in the Sunday Mirror
 

This is at the moment making the headlines on Sky News.
The article is described in depth at The Sunday Mirror Online.
Is this the same newspaper that was ferreting around after the crash of BA 038 digging up photos etc of the chap at a party a few years previous ?
As a previous poster has said even if just a little part of it is correct its a major slip up again from this airline.
As I posted just after the accident I always thought it was bad PR to parade the crew for the media because this sort of thing could come back and bite the airline on the bum even though the whole crew did an excellent job no doubt about that.

Hero???
They didn't do anything wrong and I would certainly not do better, but leaving the autopilot in untill the plane stalls is not really heroic. Everybody can do that, they were just lucky to survive.
For once a journo who likes pilots!

A grounded pilot will be on basic pay. The proportion of variable pay, only earned when flying, as a percentage of overall pay is nowhere near the ridiculous figures in the Sunday Mirror.

More generally BA are very clear about employees and the press. The information about Captain Burkill is coming from somebody close to him. That does nothing for his case whatsoever.