Yeah we'd NEVER do that would we.....

Oh wait, we already have. JSS enter stage left! And what a brilliant success that's proving to be.

In short, a Senior Management decision. As for employee share schemed, some firms dislike these as they are expensive to administer, have difficult tax implications, dilutes the owners' holding, may not as be as beneficial to staff as originally intended, etc. Given that BA has a legions of staff and staff turnover is quite high in the junior ranks, the administration would probably be painful.

FWIW in the day(s) following the major thunderstorm episode that hit the south east UK there was a lot of disruption, with aircraft and crews out of position, which I know from colleagues led to serious disruption of the normal staff travel process ex-T5. It then became even more complicated due to somebody making the decision hunterboy has described upthread..

What you describe ( the 1 hour queue) is certainly not the normal process on a normal day for stand-by travel ex-T5..

Anyhow back to the thread.

I think you have conflated my two previous posts BA culture and employee share schemes. It isn't just the admin which is painful, it is all the other items such as the accounting and tax issues which cause pain. Also, I suspect BA Management don't want staff becoming owners of IAG and having too much influence on the business. Digressing, looking into the history and origins of the current dispute, the will rub is that Balpa negotiated a pay cut of 2.6% some years ago and correct me if I'm wrong, never argued the case for reinstatement at a predetermined date? To me, that seem to poor negotiating but before everyone criticises, I'm an outsider looking in.

Pretty similar situation, different country. I was pretty sure that my company black ops was behind worried journos that claimed we worked about 70 hrs a month while earning what was more than double the pay we had at the time and public interest loving editors that put "Lazy pilots" on their frontpages, so I wasn't really surprised when that same papers refused to print union's correction even as an advertisement. Most neighbours choose just to give me stern looks, except for the one who went vocal. So I offered him our HR phone so he can apply for my position. Upon learning he has no licence or medical, I offered him to connect him with the buddy of mine who runs flight school and quoted him the approximate price for CPL + fATPL. To this day I can't understand what made him perform about face with not quite happy expression when I just tried to be helpful.

Folks, waste no time on union PR, Joe Public should carry the same weight in union - company relations as Jack Schidt does. Convincing pilots that public opinion matters is merely management's demoralization tool. Don't fall for it.

Then they can perform the revolutionary, never-seen-before method of paying bonus in cash instead of in shares or options.

Yup, giving employees extra money surely wrecks original intention of building employees' character by making them suffer due to low pay.

BA website today 5 August 2019, at 1120 BST, Update on,

Proposed industrial action by BALPA

First sentence, " We have been working with the pilots’ union, BALPA, to reach an agreement on pay and we are continuing with talks at ACAS." (My bold)

Penultimate sentence, " We understand how precious your summer holidays are and we are very sorry BALPA has threatened to call this strike action. We will continue to exhaust every possible means to avoid it and we urge BALPA to return to talks as soon as possible". (My bold)

I don't see how both highlighted sentences can be true! But then I am probably a senile retired pilot, RAF, BA and eJ.

1066

Well they should have started discussing it properly last November then!

Any update on how the talks at ACAS are going?

This unfortunately seems to be the "ethos" in the UK: You did something wrong so you now have to pay a big fine.
No mention of education/training to make sure you found out what went wrong, why it went wrong and therefore an understanding of what you need to do to prevent recurrence.

Everything from parking transgressions, speeding, dog fouling pavements, breaches in data protection legislation.....

Walnut
 

Yet again more IT problems with the airline. All front line staff are now in the firing line, the pilots are one of the key cogs, not just in flying the a/c, but showing ingenuity and flexibility in operational workarounds. Management should understand that their flight crew all go the extra mile to resolve problems. This is not a good time to further antagonise their flight crew.
I did 34yrs at the sharp end and must have saved the airline £100ks by thinking outside the box. I speak from experience the management was poor then it seems to have got a whole lot worse.

Wanted to share my support for all BA staff in getting better pay deals and working conditions
​​​​​​
I've always wanted to be a pilot and I'm slowly edging towards that dream but the closer I get, and the more I speak to current pilots, the more I question whether I actually want to do it anymore.

I won't recall every single instance but I've met a lot of pilots recently (including BA) and most, if not all, seemed genuinely unhappy, tired and disillusioned. What really stands out to me though is that very few know their true value as a human being and as an airline employee and those who do, are drowned out by the "be grateful" crowd.

This is what has ruined recruitment at entry/junior level because people will do anything the airlines demand of them because they're "grateful" just to be considered. And when they're in the job, keep schtum, put up with it because you should be grateful for what you get.

Absolute nonsense. Your contribution and position in the company should be viewed in its own merit. As a public company you have every right to question how the company rewards and renumerates its exec staff and shareholders if you're the ones who are paying for it, contributing to success and profits and seeing a lack of reinvestment in your career.

I have friends and family who worked for BA for years as ground and IT staff, treated like absolute garbage by the management but who never collectively united to make their voices heard.

About time BA pilots stood together. What makes me sad is Im sure there are pilots watching in the sidelines from other carriers who see this as an opp to jump to BA and the airline knows that so will hold it over your heads as leverage.

Best of luck to you all

Full support from me for the BA pilots.

Maybe the Virgin Atlantic ones will show some cojones and vote to take action against the attacks on their terms and conditions.

I've always considered VAA to be "enthusiastic amateurs" and the only professional part of the airline are the pilots and engineers. The quality of the management

is such that they've only ever made a profit in a handful of years in the past 30 (or so they say!).

Good luck to the BA guys.

Funny thing Management, when ever I ask them a specific question ,they need some time, then get back to You with the wrong answer, to late, after the problem has time-expired or gone proper PearShaped.
Anyway.
Good to see fellow Aviators in the UK finally taking action!

Regards
Cpt B