BA pilots 'prepared to strike'?
 

The full story is at BAPLA's new website http://www.befairba.org

Many BA pilots are incensed by Willie Walsh's inflammatory comments on the front page of last week's company rag.

He stated that the pensions deficit would not be allowed to stand in the way of BA's investment plans.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

The BA guys will never strike, as the BALPA membership will be split. Anybody with say less than 10 years to retire will be alright jack, all the new joiners are on a totally different scheme and will sit on the side lines and watch. The guys that will get stuffed will likely be those caught in the middle like cadets and guys less than 45 or so.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

I think you may be wrong Airbrake.

The troops are feeling as downtrodden and restless as they've ever been at present and the opportunity to re-assert our true value to the company might be jumped at. Nigels don't really like to rock the boat when it comes to paydeals etc, partly because all the papers will be full of 'greedy pilots' stories and make it difficult for us. Protecting our pensions is a wholly more 'reasonable' thing to go to war over.

Just my opinion, of course!

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Wrong Airbrake. I almost fall into your first category. I'll be at the brazier.

Alas I threw it away in disgust. If you look on the bafairba website you will see some articles, the gist is in there

ATB
Overstress

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Well we have had the check-in staff walk out, and GG dispute last year so this year its the turn of the pilots to mess up the summer, bets on for who it will be in 2007, cabin crew, engineers, cleaners,......

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Airbrake,
you cant know much about either the feelings or the facts surrounding what is going on at BA. I fall well outside of the figures that you quote will be striking if Willie lets it get that far.

I will be out on the picket line.


Depending on what the company actually goes for, I personally could be looking down the barrel of a 40% (yes forty) loss in pension. (The percentage loss is quite variable due to time served, rank, time till retirement etc)


The financial facts behind this are quite amazing.


BA is currently the worlds most profitable airline, yet run like a 1950s British Leyland Factory for ineffiencies rife throughout the other departments.

I dont think my 800 shorthaul hours the last year with NO overtime out of what must be the most treacleish airport in the world is ineffiecent

(Against a 900 hr legal limit, that many charter and scheduled carriers dont get anywhere near)


This productivity is gained from the pilots despite trawling between not only aircraft, but terminals during a multi sector days work and what should be rostered as a 4 hour day at any other airport being a 7 hour epic on every occasion at LHR.


Prehaps 'Profits despite negligence' should be the company moto instead?

Eat my shorts Willie. Ive had enough.


....and yes I do care greatly about the customers - those very people who pay my mortgage, but Im afraid that I have no option but to exercise my moral and legal right to try and to protect my families finacial security. One thing is for sure any Pilot strike will not be an ILLEGAL RECKLESS WILDACT STRIKE ACTION like the prvious 3 'actions'.

.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

NWT
The BIG differance if we walk is it will be a LEGAL strike. In that the company will have the required notice of the time and all members will be balloted.
By your response i take it you are either not in the pension fund (NAPS) or don't work for BA. Or i suppose you are just happy to let BA take your pension away when it suits them. Remember this isn't just pilots that are affected.
A strike is the last thing we want but if necessary we will do what ever it takes.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Hi,

Lots of us Engineers are fed up too. We'll be there at the gates when you need us!

PLM

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

you do your hours
gordon takes his cut
you dont mind cos you know the company will pay you when you retire
the airline you toiled all your life
the airline you helped being the world's fav airline
the airline you made sure by taking a pay cut during crisis (9/11) remember the rumour ba pilots were getting the cull and a strike was on the cards before it went all pear shape
then you storm the crisis and help the airline to achieve the status as the most profitable airline in the industry
well done guys
the new chap is so impressed with you lot he decided you dont need the pension he would rather spend it on ummm
let me think new paints on the tail fins,oh no that was the other bloke what's his name done it .
do not worry willie walsh is going to come up with a new idea as to how to spend the excess money he is going to save from not paying the DESERVED pension to flight crew .
and he knows he will succeed
strike is not the first option guys facts is
strike should be the last option bargain first
if all fails then strike

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Pondlifeman
Good to know we can count on your support. keep pushing the word around and encourage people to look at http://www.befairba.com

And

http://www.bacanaffordtopay.com

BALPA are shortly going to be producing stickers and flyers soon so expect to see plenty more flak heading WWs' way. :mad: :mad:

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

"the new chap is so impressed with you lot he decided you dont need the pension he would rather spend it on ummm"

.......a further large order of shiny new 777-300s. I hear on the grapevine that Boeings' press department have been told to keep schtum due to the current climate. Can a BA senior manager confirm or deny this ?

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Did hear a rumour that BALPA were thinking of offering Limited membership to UK CAA Licenced Engineers. I think that they must know that the Licenced people dont have any real representation.

Good if it were true.

LP

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Can't see the engineers joining BALPA, that would require backbone.:mad:

Up the BUFFs!:ok:

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

3GREENS,

I can also assure another group I would class as non militant are fed up too,the cabin crew.We have far less to lose as a lump sum but 30-40% of 10K will mean a lot when we are put out to pasture.
I am in BASSA (the more vocal union!!) but I have friends in CC89 and they to are feeling the same.

I certainly support my flight crew colleagues and point out to those who throw flipant comments your way,our pilots are professional people and a strike is their last option.
Having security for your retirement is very important to all and it takes something as serious as this to make them take of strike action.

Maybe WW needs to be warned by the City to wind his neck in because he's taking on something bigger than he's tried to chew before.
He may end up with the egg on his face when he is known as the shortest serving CEO at BA!!.

Beware BIG Willie,you're about to shrink in the cold!!:ok: :ouch: .

WTDWL.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Hi Airbrake,
I am nor sure you have actually thought your comments through, because although it is true that there are a small minority of BA co-pilots who have joined in the last couple of years ALL the Captains are either in NAPS or APS so none of the new joiners could actually crew any aircraft !

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Flywheel. It's not about crewing aircraft, ultimately BALPA has to get 51% of BALPA members to vote for a strike. The fact is that BA now has 3 different pension schemes and about 100 guys leaving each year. You can do the sums and figure out how long it will take before new joiners are in the majority. BA has to do nothing but wait and promise that all pensions will be honoured for the next 10 years or so.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Retirements more or less stop from this year onwards, it will be at least 15 years before theres a majority in the MPS.

Hopefully we will have forced a large increase in contributions by then, the new joiner "ballot" by BALPA was appalingly handled and shames us.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Dear Nigel,
Please go on strike so I can 'ave your job.
Ta muchly.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Is that a typo?

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Interstingly, there are rumours afoot that Alitalia pilots are contemplating a walk-out over the very same grounds. Mind you, it that happens there is a very real chance there'll be no work to return to.

Cabin Crew with SAS are also mulling some sort of action over the hiring of approx. 50 Chinese CC on roughly 1/5th the wage of a Scandyhooligan CC member. The CC Union is calling for them to be on the same terms; SAS says they're based in China and thus different terms apply (or something along those lines).

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

"..the only thing a reasonable man gets is a reputation for being a reasonable man..." Willie Walshe

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

I'm sympathetic to the cause, but answer me these please:

To generate your pension at current levels, you will need a pension pot of around £3 million. Will you have actually produced that amount of wealth in your working life, in addition to what you've taken as salary and benefits?

If you haven't, then your retirement is being subsidised by someone else, ie other employees, shareholders, etc. Is that fair and reasonable?

If you want to improve your creation of wealth, you have to get the ticket prices up. BA then becomes uncompetitive and you lose planes and jobs.

It's straight economics, and something somewhere has to give in all this lot. Obviously you don't want it to be your pension - so what would you like it to be?

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

But if Mr Willie is set in his plans, how will any strike achieve anything apart from more money aches? I think the pilots and cabin crews have a difficult one here and will have to accept Willie's ways.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

What a load of rot 757operator!

I'm not being subsidised by anyone. BA agreed to pay me that when I joined and will have allowed for it in their business plan. Investors can make their own choice about whether the business plan is a good one.

As for subsidising shareholders, I assume then that you will be offering a wage cut to help the poor luvvies that own your company? What's the difference?

Pension is nothing more than deferred pay. Taking half of my pension is effectively giving me a wage cut and as far as I'm concerned, the T&Cs in BA are at rock bottom and the only way is up!

Different groups of workers get different deals depending on the supply of those qualified/willing to undertake the work in question, there is no subsidy involved (unless you count those who have their shifts covered by colleagues whilst they attend their painting and decorating jobs).

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

757 operator,

To generate a pension at current levels, based upon retiring as a Captain after 30 years service, you need a pension pot of around £1.7 million, not £3 million, just under the government's new pension cap. BA shouldn't have promised it if they couldn't afford it. However, if you look at www.bacanaffordtopay.com, which uses BA's own figures, they can afford it. They would just prefer not to pay.

Whilst Pilots make up only 7% of the members of NAPS and they represent 27% of the schemes liabilities, it should not be forgotten that Pilot contributions to NAPS represent 28.2% of the total inflows to NAPS. Who's being subsidised by whom?

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Whilst I sympathise with the BA crews going on strike just isn't going to work.
Over the last few years and especially last year, the Gate Gourmet strike damaged BA's reputation, but it's been strong enough to take the hits and stand back up. If the Pilots then the cabin crew...then the engineers all go on strike then I’m afraid things will really go tits up. The Pilots get what they want the cabin crew will think they can get what they want same with the engineers. The BA rep will be in tatters.
The new joiners in BA have signed onto a crap pension scheme- do you expect to see them on the picket lines after the senior guys stood back and watched the new joiners retirement hope being thrown down the drain? As more join the old guard will get weaker.
Walsh isn't a push over, he won't sit at home counting the piggy bank trying to find extra to put in pension funds; he'll be working on some new business plans.
Good Luck....us in easy will be watching, maybe from the picket lines at Luton! :O

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Just you boys remember the Aer Lingus carry-on -- he locked them boys out when they went out -- Willie Won !!!!

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Mr 757, I save this company's sullied reputation out of the gutter every working day. If they have to invest £3m, £30m, £300m I couldn't give a flying $%^&.
They owe me every flipping penny, every flipping day, they owe me big time.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

The defeatist attitude of some of the posters on this thread (the majority non BA) beggars belief, but does go a long way to explaining the long term decline of pilots terms and conditions.

We do not have to accept changes just because Willie says so, BA 'the most profitable airline in the world' for two years running can afford to pay.

I suggest some go look in the mirror and then think how they could, with a little backbone, improve there income and lifestyles for both themselves and their families.:*

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

:rolleyes: As the thread starter, I'd like to thank the non BA contributors for their thoughts. For those who wish to compare this situation with the GG fiasco, forget it. This is all about pilots who have given the company 20% productivity improvements practically free, being shafted by a management team from the 'flog 'em till they resign' Harvard Business School.

Many of us chose to leave other airline careers to join BA, sacrificing years of seniority. The pension was part of the deal when we joined. We will not stand by and allow Willie Walsh to shaft us. Journalists and City moles, take note.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

The BA NAPS scheme is worth about ten billion with liabilities of around 12 according to todays radio. If it goes tits up then the employees' pension is about 80% funded with the possibilty of more from the sale of the assets. They are being asked to settle for pensions of up to 40% less than that which they have worked for during the last twenty years. The aircraft would still be there and the slots. WW needs them as much as they need BA.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Jet A1, you're not comparing apples with apples.

Aer Lingus was a company in distress, BA is the most profitable airline in the world and only this week, several brokers have upgraded their forecasts for our shares to 'outperform'.

I do not think Willie's paymasters would be best pleased if what was supposed to 'outperform', suddenly went badly pear shaped because he had gambled and lost, do you?

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Overstress,

You've hit the nail exactly where the problem is :

I hope you guys in BA and Easy will win your respective fight. It's about time to realise that the fat cats and managers alike enjoy their Yearly bonus thanks to the hard work of the EMPLOYEES within the Industry. It's about time that :

1)Everyone enjoy a fare share of Profits when business is doing good
2)Media and others stop exagerating a largely false picture of doom and gloom of our industry : ie 9/11 hit everybody hard, fuel prices are soaring, competition coming from the east. SARS yesterday Birdflue tomorrow...........
3) Balpa not only defends members in their respective companies but also LOBBY on MP's and government members to have bankrupt US airlines stay where they should be --> on the tarmack. :*

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Strikes can be won and lost on public opinion. If you can win the sympathy of the general (as well as BA travelling) public then a strike could have some effect. Unfortunately the publics' perception of BA pilots is that they are very highly paid and are afforded very good working conditions. "Why are they striking, they're on a good deal anyway"! Whether this perception is justified or not, as long as it holds, there is going to be little or no sympathy from the public.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Human Factor,
Sorry, only £1.7m then - but if I go out to get a BA-style index-linked pension on the open market it costs £3m because the index-linked bit is so high risk to the pension provider. A period of high inflation, low returns and increased longevity could change 1.7m into £3m even within the BA scheme.

On the subject of creating wealth, some pilots retiring now spent the 1970s on Shuttle standby, some of the 1980s as stewards and didn't get commands till the late 1990s, yet they draw a final salary pension - just when have they created much wealth?

beaver eager
Yes, you will be getting a effective wage cut - because of your pension arrangements, you are currently uncompetitive, that's the whole point.

Airbus Unplugged
You amaze me - in your position, how can you be so resentful? Rightly or wrongly, 99% of pilots outside BA want your job. Why not leave and go and be happy somewhere else?

Super Stall
Not defeatest, just realistic. The pilot market is being driven ever cheaper and cheaper, I don't like it any more than you do but it's happening and it appears unstoppable. New joiners from around the world will accept anything to go flying. You will still have a great deal no matter what they do to your pension.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Who cares about public sympathy. London Underground train drivers go on strike every month. I'm not sure that is very popular among the general public. Yet they get away with and seem to get what they want :rolleyes:

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

Actually 757operator, I'm not uncompetetive... I'm benchmarked. Paid the right amount and more productive than many of those I'm benchmarked against.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

If the pension goes, they're welcome to it.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

That may be so (the perception bit!) but I think after the efforts of a certain Robert Maxwell the British public is very sensitive to the thought of pensions being eroded, regardless of the affected group.

The current UK Govt with Robber Brown and Bleater Blair has much to answer for. Pensions are in the public eye. We will fight this battle as hard as we need to.

Well, 757-op, the old chestnuts are being trotted out so early in this thread. Many of us were 757 operators in other companies and joined BA for the pension. The whole point about our industry is that the seniority system means we just cannot up sticks and go somewhere else - we've done that already to get into BA.

Some facts: BA has sufficient cash inflows to pay off the pensions deficit (over £1.2 billion per year)

BAs cash reserve is sufficient to pay of the pensions deficit in one go.

BAs employee costs (including pension contributions) as a percentage of turnover are lower than Lufthansa, Air France/KLM, Northwest, American and United Airlines.

Re: BA pilots 'prepared to strike'
 

My BA NAPS pension is not index linked.

Shuttle back up was indeed a disgrace but was open only to the senior few, pilots working as stewards was relatively short lived, the issue of command is irrelevant. The FSS pension IS part of my remuneration package, BA touch it at their peril.

Touching my pension will not make us competitive. BA makes money despite itself and its management.

Have to agree there.


By the way I have relatively few years to go but I WILL strike over the issue. Funny how it is overlooked that to get around Robber Brown's pension CAP the last BA remuneration report declared that senior management are to receive bonuses paid in shares of between 150 and 200%. And they want my pension!

Times have changed in BA I used to work around 450 hours a year in the 80s. This past 12 months I have done over 800.

Touch my pension and I will go on strike, probably the only issue over which I would.