I warn you now, in 1989 airline pilots in Australia struck a plan to resign en-masse to get the airlines to the negotiating table. Airlines called their bluff and accepted the resignations and immediately made new contracts available to anyone who wanted them. DEC’s were offered, many foreign pilots took positions and that caused a few local pilots to jump on the band wagon. The airlines ripped up the previous contracts and weeded out those who they didn’t want back.... they did all of this with the support of the then Government. Be very careful, don’t rely on everyone doing the right thing, it will just take a few to sign the new contract and then people will pile on especially if they see external pilots taking jobs, and there is no shortage of them. Good luck.

I posted this on another Thread, it was from Flight International magazine in April:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0d674437f9.jpg

Conflicts between airline management and staff at a time like this will almost certainly lead to that well known Cold War concept: Mutually Assured Destruction, which has that aptly descriptive acronym

A friend of mine with access to the BA balpa forum recalled a point made by someone - if BA were expecting 2019 pax levels to return by 2023, with the number of people there binning now they’d need to have started recruiting 2 years ago to have the correct numbers in 2023.

And this latest stunt doesn’t really give the other unions any reason to show up as requested by BA. BALPA are the only ones who’ve turned up to the consultations and look at what good that has done.

Reading how the BA's management is treating its employees is very disappointing, although technically legal. The only way to change this is by not voting for the political parties that allow such Employment Law provisions to exist.

Would the first test of solidarity be no one volunteering anymore for the long haul turnarounds?

I have to say that BA will face a day of reckoning because of their actions. It may not help those affected at the moment, but I can see a time when the entire BA work force walks out en mass. Pilots, cabin crew, engineers, everyone.

The management may have the upper hand at the moment, but if they don’t behave in a decent manner towards their staff they are destroying BA just as surely as this pandemic is.

BirdmanBerry;

I've been through this, albeit not in the aviation sector. You are correct that a company cannot make a position redundant only to employ again in the exact job role, but this isn't what's happening. BA want to change their employees contracts, which requires the employees to agree. If employees don't agree then they can be dismissed for 'some other substantial reason'. BA can then offer to re-employ them under new terms, BUT (and it's a very big BUT) doing so could lead to unfair dismissal claims.

Well first of all you are not going to need existing crew levels in July and August, its going to take years before the industry gets back to something resembling 'normal'. Next, as others have alluded, not everyone will refuse to sign a new contact - every individuals circumstances are different. Finally BA are looking to make redundancies so an offer of a job (on any terms) to those individuals that otherwise would have been laid-off with no immediate prospect of getting a new one will be mightily attractive.

And the New Zealand pilots of course...

Absolutely no chance. Not a snowballs chance in hell that will happen. I’m afraid BA are calling the shots here. Good luck to everyone affected.

Ok...normal levels will not be required in July and August. But next year ? How do you know it will take years. The answer is you don’t unless you have swallowed the BA handbook on the best ways to screw your employees. And your second and final points are clearly what BA is relying on.......morally repugnant.

If anybody is dumb enough to think enough Air New Zealand pilots would be able to replace even ONE DAY'S WORTH of a BA schedule anytime before 2021 then they shouldn't be at the front of an airplane let alone in charge of one. Even if you could find 500 NZ pilots who were suddenly willing and able to travel to the other side of the world, dragging their families, to an airline like BA whose reputation is in the toilet, how exactly would you get them recruited, sim checked, OCC course, HR bull**** week, visa done, licence conversion, line checked (20 - 40 sectors)... 6 months to a year at the minimum, if even possible at all!

​​​​​Jesus christ, call their bluff, they can't fly planes without you, and you are not as easily replaced as they want you to believe, especially once it goes public that they are trying to replace all of you wonderful Nigels with Johnny Foreigner, does anyone remember Brexit? The Sun/Mail etc would destroy them for it.

I have enough experience of working for BA to know that when push comes to shove its every man for himself. As for when things will return to normal I have not seen anyone in the industry expecting a complete recovery by next year - if it happens I will be more than happy for everyone but I simply cannot see it.

I'm afraid Atlantic Explorer is probably correct.

If I remember correctly, not that long ago, when BA was making loadsamoney all the major unions at BA: GMB, UNITE, BALPA were all meant to be acting as one with regard to negotiating a decent pay rise, so we could all share in the company's success, etc etc..That lasted about 5 minutes.

Jet 11; Has it spot on divide and rule many colleagues will have to take whats on offer, many will be hopeful of getting an offer of employment. This action has been on the cards for the last 20 years and was tested successfully by the likes of British Gas, BT and a number of the Electricity Companies. Public money was used than and there was no outcry and those companies staff would have surely had the whip hand then. I believe for many colleagues this has not come as a great surprise it was expected it was a matter of when!

Nobody in the airline industry appears to have seen Covid-19 coming but surely after last years threats of Industrial Action, the prospect of retaliation by management was only to be expected. The only question would have been what situation would offer BA management the opportuntiy to turn the tables on what it has always perceived to be overpaid and underworked aircrew. Friends who work for BA or are now retired tell me that the Company has been on a crusade for decades to reduce terms and conditions that dated back to very different times - is this a fair summation ?

Just an observation: I believe things will get back to "normal" much quicker than expected. I am in the US and already things are rapidly getting back to normal. Restaurants, shops etc...all look as they did in Jan (certainly in the consv states). I also believe that the aviation industry will see a rapid bounce. Probably not back to the prior levels...but not far off. Time will tell, but usually people overestimate the good...and overestimate the bad. The airline managements know this, and that is why they are desperately attempting to lock in big concessions now. A few months from now...such strategies would seem laughable.

Here’s a radical idea which could also apply to a number of other industries.

1. Wake up and smell the coffee; the world is a different place for several years.
2. No redundancies.
3. Everybody takes a 30% pay cut. (It could be 40%, or 25%, that’s a guess, a starting figure).
4. Everybody’s working hours are cut by the same amount.

Result: everyone stays current and employed, (and well rested). As traffic increases so can working hours and pay levels.

What about the training costs of keeping everyone current?