Not quite sure what your point is MP. Forced redundancy is not the same as voluntary retirement. I lost my job at bmi mainline in Jan 2002 aged 50, and had no income for 6 months until finding another job, albeit as an FO for the remainder of my career. I had only been at bmi for 7 months.

I know that very many former colleagues in their 30's, 40's, and 50's face the stark reality of losing their jobs permanently. Perhaps thousands. You were one of the few lucky ones in this unstable profession. And you came from another era. Few if any today will be offered VR, it will be the same forced redundancy that I had no choice but to accept. I am not criticising you, just asking what the relevance of your post is to today's pilots.

(Could't stand Bishop btw. Nasty piece of work)

A week or two is a long time in business/ "that was then and this is now"/the past is another country.

Two or three of weeks back I reckon many airline CEOs were simply seeing this in terms of their company vs the opposition and how do we come out of this on top...I reckon now more and more of them are simply concentrating on what they need to do to get their company through this at all.

I think he /"BA" are allowed to change his mind (not saying he or BA has).

RoyHudd

MP’s advice is relevant because BA dos have a large number of post 55 pilots who may be considering VR. The personal costs of early retirement are minimal compared to being unemployable for an unforeseeable period. The payroll savings per person would be 10x more than taking off the bottom.

RH, I think MP used the wrong word in the second case - did he mean to say "I was taken out to dinner on my retirement by several pilots who had faced retirement redundancy who just wanted to say thank you, a very kind thought."? I did that when one Contract I was on started to wind up so I left what work there was to the young guys with families - I had the flex to work away from home, semi-retired, which I then did for several years. People gradually left over the next 18 months but, at least, it bought them more time to plan.

Mind you, the young bu66ers never took me out to dinner tho! :uhoh: Praps they were just glad to be shot of H 'n' H!

I take your point, Ron Swanson. Although it really only applies to BA, and possibly a few at TUI. Final Salary pensions are nowhere there for the pre-55's.

I've been through a number of VR schemes and the basic factors will be the same for the majority of other industries as well, they are generally based on:

• Big payouts for longer serving members.
• People will take VR if they have a good fall back plan. Such as retirement and money in the bank or assets.
• People will also take the VR if they can also be employed in another like-for-like job.
• Generally people who are low skilled and less likely to find another role then won’t take VR.

At a business perspective; VR hurts the company more because it doesn't necessarily control who actually leaves the company. Whereas forced redundancy is better for the company because they can control the loss but affects moral. It’s a balancing act between morale and company survival.

So what are IAG doing at Iberia and Vuelling?

Does BA have a “last on first off” contractual requirement for forced redundancy? In that case it may not be cheaper to make the most junior redundant, considering more senior employees may have to be retrained into their roles if there’s still a requirement for them.

Certainly in 2008 BA Management were at great pains to stress that LIFO was only ONE criteria it would use for forced redundancy.

I feel terribly sad at this news. I know the industry as a whole is suffering massively at the moment.

I took VR (cabin crew) in 2016 (and have not looked back) and still have many great friends at BA, both in the cabin and in the flight deck.

I really hope that those who want to stay, can and do, and those who are ready to leave, will be able to with dignity and enough to see them right.

That is indeed IF it comes to it for all of this to happen.

All the very best to all.

BA made 1.95 Billion Pounds last year.
They pay fat cats big money. They dominate the market and supress the emergence of competition, simply
by size and their monopoly out of the UK, and increasingly, through their owners IAG, EuropeIAG is incorporated as a Sociedad Anónima in Spain, where the company board meetings are held, and is domiciled in Spain for tax purposes.[41][42][43][44] IAG has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange.

No way BA should have a bailout, loan or otherwise from the UK tax payer. They have enjoyed their dominance of the marked and should be able to take it on the chin. No way BA.

This is exactly what I thought too. The wording was very odd and deliberate about the U.K. taxpayer and not receiving government support.

When I first heard the statement, I thought it sounded like brinksmanship also but then dismissed this as it would be an odd thing to do.

Maybe it’s just my disbelief at the scale of the problem.

Airlines are talking about reduced size post covid though so it’s not entirely unexpected regardless of furlough schemes etc.

A lot can happen between now and the announcement and consultation process though so hopefully the landscape will be starting to look more positive by then.

Ho 'n' High, Sorry about the typo, I did mean redundancy, now corrected.

RoyHudd, When I was fairly new to BMA, as it was then known, I faced redundancy in my mid twenties with a wife and young family. At the same it was suggested by some of the more senior captains that certain individuals who had retired from BOAC and BEA on fat pensions may do the decent thing and resign to save the youngsters' jobs. They refused and the planned redundancies took place, fortunately I just missed the cut. Life has a funny way of dealing with things as one gentleman was dead within a year from cancer and never had a life in retirement, a pastime I can highly recommend. Yes I was lucky to stay in the same airline for over three decades but it did have its ups and downs, but the grass isn't always greener in the next field. I can think you can see now why I'm suggesting, possible too subtly, that the more senior employees might consider the option of early retirement.
One thing both have in common in a loathing for our erstwhile leader and how he treated his employees in the company pension fund, and don't forget it was a condition of service that you joined the company pension fund, no ifs or buts.

BA strategy ??
 

Interesting analysis...

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...nment-11980344

That’s been mentioned here before; where the airline should become kind of victorious over many other airlines after this crisis and assume their craters.

It doesn't take long for an airline the size of BA to lose a billion pounds, or two billion pounds. BA will be bust next year without one of: significant government funding, significant cost cutting, or significant and rapid resumption of air travel. The government isn't going to lift a finger that's clear (and the short-sighted environmental monomaniacs who think air travel and transport is an optional luxury that must be destroyed will only encourage that), nor is the government (of many countries) going to allow a rapid resumption of air travel.

So BA has cut costs or go bust.

And had it all gone fine this year, would everyone have been liking BA if they sat on their money instead of giving it to shareholders - and shareholders includes your pension funds, your personal stock investments (UK ISAs, and so on), life insurance companies, and all that sort of thing. Hardly "fat cats", actually your bread and your butter?

It's easy to blame a company for making a profit and paying a dividend last year instead of sitting on the cash. I can tell you for sure that companies do get blamed for not paying dividends if they make a profit - then they're selfish fat cats not paying out to their well-deserving shareholders who need a return on their investment.

Don't be so fast to criticise BA when they acted as companies are demanded to act in normal economic times and now they have to handle a deadly (to the company) crisis on their own.

Wiggy wrote:

I have no wish to score points; the situation is dire for all of us at the moment. However Willy Walsh came out with his dick swinging with one objective to see off Norwegian and Virgin. The CEO of Virgin realised the gravity of the situation and was the first to ask for a loan. Hopefully sense will prevail and airlines will get a credit line like most major carriers from around the world. Yes when this is over, things will look very different but lets do there most to minimise the hurt for all concerned.

BA Strategy
 

Not sure whether you approve or disapprove. One thing for sure air travel will be in the doldrums for some time. How soon will it bounce back?? How long is a piece of string? It may well be survival of the fittest and if it is then you can't crticise BA. The only "unknown" will be the control governments have over their "flag carrier"(if they bail them out) and whether that will put "independant" airlines at a disadvantage. Government approval route wise etc might become difficult if the competition is a flag carrier the government has a financial interest in.
Lets hope the public travel asap. Whether they will be able to afford after job losses etc. another question.

Not too many weeks ago, BA told the world that they had huge financial reserves (9B Euros worth) and that companies that don't should not get a bail out from the government.

Currently a large number of BA staff are getting up to £2500/month of government money. BA are topping that up for some.
The furlough agreement entered into by many staff was on the proviso of no redundancies. BA can't have it both ways. This government subsidy was supposed to save jobs.

Len McClusky of Unite has come out swinging. We'll see how many punches strike the target.

Sackings unlawful and immoral

Massively sorry for everyone affected by this

However, the furlough scheme was never on that proviso, that's cr@p, I hope the unions succee and thrash out a great deal for staff, but they need to stick to fact.

Any redundancies will be after the furlough scheme ends, BA are just getting their ducks in a row

GS-Alpha

I fear there may be some substance to this assessment. After 9/11 opportunism ruled big time in negotiations. No crisis is too big or small to be lost as an opportunity to cut costs.

We’ve had the company proposal through from Balpa, utterly opportunistic smash and grab raid on Ts and Cs which has very little (read nothing) to do with Covid-19 (in much the same fashion as easyJet).

Redundancies split evenly between Captains and FOs. Won’t spill the requested figure precisely suffice to say it’s in four figures.

around 1200

Cast your minds back to post 9/11 and then 2008 - BA claim the end of the aviation world is nigh, take pay cuts and decimate T&Cs to 'save the company' - you know what happened thereafter. The 'best' became just another airline on 900hrs per annum, the most coveted roster system trashed, pension scheme destroyed - all in the name of 'saving the company'. The problem for management is, they have pared you to the bone (with your full and naive support) that there's little left to cut.

You can all read it here: https://gofile.io/?c=LZkPqV

It’s a complete land grab - using the crisis as an opportunity to tear up everything that made BA worth working for.

If they get their way, seniority is dead as is any kind of stable rostering system. The “efficiencies” I’m sure mean working long haul to EASA limits, and what on earth do absence management and grievance procedures have to do with redundancy.

At least when I worked for O’Leary he had the good grace to tell you his mission was to ^@%! you!

judge11

Why don’t you crawl back in the hole you came from? 1200 pilot colleagues are staring down the hole and you’re gloating about their naivety?

Jwscud

Don't forget Scope agreement thrown in the bin too.

The document above contains one of the most reprehensible, cynical, and amoral management strategies that I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. The list of glaringly mercenary attempts to rewrite agreements permanently is long.

One wonders how forcing a new policy on performance and absence management will save British Airways ? Even Frank Lorenzo would be raising an appreciative eyebrow at that detail.

Unfortunately that Sky News article above seems to be prescient. I’m sorry to see the pain that British Airways pilots and employees are facing. Hopefully BALPA is up to the task.

I wish you all the best, and a hearty C you next time to BA management.

And remember this document contains the signature of AB. Will the last person in the room who was still labouring under the illusion that he’s one of the “good guys” please turn out the lights?

Was logging on to say this very thing.

I'm not sure where we go from here. At this point, it seems unlikely that I'll ever see the pointy end of a jet again. Good luck to us all, in BA and across the industry.

Reads like a wish list of everything BA management has been itching to do for years. Never waste a good crisis!

That letter is disgusting. I hope BALPA can offer a strategy, though the bargaining position, unfortunately, is weak.

The attitude of BA management is so reprehensible that I imagine virtually all of their pilots would love nothing more than to take VR and move to a better one which actually has a modicum of humanity.
Oh hang on, nobody is hiring.

This is a hard call. Do you live by your principles or put food on the table?

I have wife and 3 kids relying on me. If I worked for such a callous and cut-throat company I would rant and rave...then swallow my pride, crack on, and pay the bills.

I have many friends at BA (and also Virgin) and every single one is a top guy, great pilot and deserves so much more than management are prepared to give.

At least BA management have been openly exposed for what they are. I would love to see the unions gave a field-day with this letter, but I bet BA have already got their guns loaded and aimed.

Not at all - I've got several 'been there, been made redundant' T-shirts.

Their naivety was in swallowing hook, line and sinker, BA management's sob-stories over the past almost 2 decades, sob-stories that have been proven to be completely groundless and yet they were believed leading to the erosion of what, at the time, were some of the most envied T&C's in the industry. There's a massive crunch coming but if you don't learn from past mistakes..............you know the rest.

Oh,and don't be so rude.

You may not like the way his pov is expressed, but I agree with him/her. And before you start having a pop at me as well, I’m looking down the barrel too, as I’m a Nigel.....for the moment! We, as a working group( pilots) and Union (BA BALPA), have consistently ceded ground (in my 15 yrs or so in BA) to our increasingly aggressive management. By expressing this view, I’m not for one moment blaming previous CCs alone, for the position we find ourselves in. Collectively, we haven’t found the will or the way to fight back effectively enough and thus find ourselves in a pretty weak position, at a time when the mgmt are as usual, trying to hammer us down again. Since I joined BA, I believe BALPA have managed to avoid compulsory redundancies when the dips have come along. I sincerely hope, for all our sakes, that this record can be maintained. If I’m wrong factually, unreserved apologies. Good luck everyone, my BA colleagues in ALL depts, our friends in VAA, and everyone else who is affected.

Indeed, IAG seemed to have singled out BA only thus far! Why?

Are Iberia, Iberia Express, Vueling, Level, Air Europa, Aer Lingus seemingly immune from similar action? :hmm:

I used to know a AB - Hawk QFI - not the same one?

I have apologised to judge privately. I was out of line, emotions are running a little high tonight as I’m sure they are for many of us.

stay safe all, and best of luck to everyone.

I cannot see Vueling escaping the same sword. Spain is financially on its knees and tourism won't come back soon. Iberia have already been pared to the bone in the recent past but even they won't survive the same sword in their current status.

I believe it only a matter of time for similar announcements from the Iberian Peninsula.