Willie learnt/suffered at the hands of the master Molly, but doesnt have the b:mad: lls to do it as well.
And LIFO/Seniority is not yet illegal in respect of redundancies, nor has the law yet been through the hands of judges. And if the parameters for redundancy are agreed with trade union, provide considerable strength to their use.

I really don't want to get involved in BA politics but why does anyone think that the basic seniority policy of Last In/First Out would not hold up in a court of law?

In companies that have such a system, every single pilot signs a contract to the extent that they acknowledge such a system.

How else could you organise redundancies etc etc?

This is not a business like the dog-eat-dog commodity traders in the city who make an obscene amount of money on somebody else's back or else end up in jail in Singapore.

We are professional pilots who spend our lives transporting people and freight around the world in the nearest thing that is possible to total safety.

It is important to all of us that we know where we stand in the order of things. If things start to go wrong then your "number" is very, very important.

Mind you, my seniority number meant nothing when Laker went down the pan but I did get to be No.1 on a subsequent seniority list before I retired. Being No.1 on the list meant nothing either for by the time they got down to me there was nothing left!

Despite Faire d'Income's assertion that it is self-evident, I think it remains to be proven whether seniority brings many benefits to airline pilots, especially in respect of promotion. Overall I think it is a recipe for dissatisfaction, as those who are unhappy with their employer feel unable to leave. However I think that for compulsory redundancy there is a case for rewarding loyalty (ie length of service), and possibly for other relatively trivial reasons, eg leave, trip allocation etc. Sorry to use so much "bandwidth" as he trendily calls it, but those near the bottom of the pile deserve an explanation of the ways in which the demigods near the top are better operators. Go on: convince me!

They're not better operators, but you answered your own question....

If you want a promotion then the most loyal get first bite at the cherry, subject to meeting the necessary standards.

Anyway, didn't LIFO get tested at MyTravel not so long ago?

I'm not in the business of trying to convince. You are where you are and we are where we are. You are all welcome to join us, we are recruiting.

Sometimes seniority is in the pilots' interest, sometimes it is not. I feel it is a double edged sword most of the time.

When there is a glut of pilots (as there has been for roughly the past 13/14 years in the UK) seniority benefits the companies as it allows them to hammer down on the terms and conditions with all the pilots locked into their jobs to protect their seniority. On the other hand, if there is a glut of pilots where are the better jobs going to be found anyway? So in this case seniority also benefits the pilots as it provides them with an annual increment which at least has them better off each year by rewarding their experience when times may otherwise be hard for them.

When there is a shortage of pilots (as soon there will be, in mega proportions, I sincerely hope) seniority again benefits the companies as it retains a stable workforce who are unable to easily accept what may be better pickings elsewhere as they are locked into their jobs to protect their seniority. On the other hand, as the transfer of labour is far from easy, the shortage bites harder quicker, especially at the bottom end of the food chain and the terms and conditions are forced up relatively quickly as the one thing airline managers cannot afford to do for long is cancel flights because there are insufficient pilots. This improvement in the terms and conditions starts at the bottom and takes a very long time to filter through to the top of the food chain and the net effect, even in a time of shortage is that there is a levelling or redistribution in the spread of terms and conditions between the best jobs and the worst jobs.

I am sure that there will be issues that I haven't thought of, but overall, I would have to suggest that seniority benefits the comanies much more than the pilots.

A slight thread drift from Pensions here so it must be remembered that whatever were to happen to seniority, many will feel 'chained' to BA because of the legacy FSS pension scheme which is now almost completely unavailable anywhere else as all the schemes are closed to new entrants.

I have vociferous views to enlighten those who might sooner be lead astray by a fixation on the career, backed by a long number of years experience of BA, the industry and a seniority system.

I won't duplicate what Nearly Nigel has written as it is pretty comprehensive and I agree with most of it.

Needless to say, if I disagree with you, it doesn't mean I am ignorant, a whinger, bitter, or indeed a manager. I choose to remain entirely anonymous, so feel free to disagree with my views, but don't write me off as ignorant if I disagree - unless your aim is to run an authoritarian state in which case the Russians will welcome you. It simply implies to me that you cannot construct a decent argument on the opposing side.

Fact remains that BA pilots will never strike as three pension schemes include (a) APS whom are very well off, and (b) BAPS who are not going to look out for NAPS, since those same NAPS crew failed to take action to prevent erosion of the terms to those dire ones at BAPS.

I particularly disagree with this result of seniority - not because the company does not owe some sort of loyalty (it would be ridiculous not to give back to employees), but that you result with a profile of experience that is top heavy, pay that is top heavy, inappropriate strucuture for future development of lower experience levels, and ties the company into a far more expensive structure than their competition.

Fact is it? At least 50% of the APS pilots I fly with are chomping at the bit to strike to stick the boot into management. Besides there are now less than 150 APS pilots left in BA. 'BAPS'[sic] number around 350 and are all FOs so cannot so BA cannot run any sort of operation with them alone. The remaining 2500+ pilots are NAPS who are disgusted at the companys thinly disguised attempt to steal their pensions to fund the leadership teams bonus.

ba pilots prepared to strike Has
 

Has any body thought about the consequences of sharing a work load with someone who has not been on strike, the ramifications are enormouse & do not bear thinking about as regards SAFETY, very few strikes are a 100%.
This of course is presuming there is a that there is one ,I do not think there will be, Jaw Jaw not War War.

Why would they/you strike?

They/you earn a fantastic salary, doing something others only dream of.

By comparison with the cut-throat commercial world, their/your job is straighforward, if occasionaly demanding. It the work they/you have been trained for, and sought the priviledge to execute.

Of course they/you do have to make sacrifices to get where they/you are. Just like in the real world.

The pax they/you carry have duly paid their/your employer the price asked for safe, timely travel from A to B.

Can anyone else remember 'To fly to serve'?

JFDI ?

Just in case anyone is in any doubt - of the last 5 crews I have flown with I have done a little scientific survey (!) and of 10 people, 6 were more radical than me (and I WILL strike given the present options) 3 were similarly radical and only 1 was "anti" strike.

Be aware. I will not stand for 40% of my pension to disappear. I will enjoy answering the phone to the management bullys and advising them to tell their story walking. I know if we stick together we will win. I know I would rather work in the middle east than turn up for work for this lot after they shaft my contractual pension.

Ignore the diversions of LIFO etc etc. This matters and we cannot lose if we stick together.

Oh, and Leclairage. 'Your job is straightforward.' It is better to keep quiet and people to assume your stupidity than be noisy and confirm it. - "Occupation - Specialist Lighting Designer". Nice.

Because they are trying to steal over £500,000 from my pension fund.

If they got off their backsides and got an ATPL instead of dreaming they could do it too.

It's not a privilege. Nor is it an honour for that matter. Its a job. When will you wannabees realise that job satisfaction doesn't pay the bills. Cool, hard, crispy cash does. So pay up BA or the planes stop flying.

This is aimed mostly at Leclairage:

I don't think you'll find many businesses more cut-throat than the airlines.

My salary is not bad but I could earn significantly more in the City. The reason I don't, I like the lifestyle. However, part of my salary (the deferred part) is made up of the pension which BA promised me and my colleagues when we joined.

BA are the most profitable airline in the world and they can afford to pay it, BALPA can prove they can afford to pay it and they damn well will pay it or they'll face the consequences, which will more than likely cost their shareholders far more than leaving well alone. Ask yourself how would you like it if some short-termist manager (I use the word advisedly) with no morals whatsoever tried to enhance his bonus by shafting you for half a million quid?

I quite liked this one:

... and my employer duly pays me the price asked for safe, timely travel from A to B. However, if my employer thinks it can reduce the price by 40%, no-one will be travelling anywhere.

Finally, as far as my job being straightforward, if you think it even compares in the slightest to holding a PPL and IMC, you are deluded. If you think it's that easy, get your ATPL and put your money where your mouth is. Until then, as you clearly have no idea, I suggest you wind your neck in.

The only way there will not be a strike is if BA back down and cough up the cash into the fund.

You'll see...

It's important for BA outsiders to realise what Human Factor (above) means by this. Our managers' bonuses are predicated on improving margins - ie controlling their budgets. BA are almost unique in this.
So the more they shaft us, the bigger the bonus they get.

And it doesn't matter either, if the saving on their individual budget has a detrimental effect on the overall operation. :mad:

This thread has beengoing on for a while. When is the action going to kick off?

qwerrty

Don't expect the action to kick off in the next month while (a) the company are still awaiting the pensions final report ,(b) the trustees are awaiting their separate report commissioned into the companys ability to pay, (c) the trustees and the company meet after (a) and (b) above to refine the initial company proposals, (d) and until the company/trustees have put their agreed position to the employees.

Then anticipate (a) a series of special union meetings to garner support for the battle, (b) a legal balloting process for IA taking 2-3 weeks, (c) the required notification to the company (2-3 weeks?) of any intended action.

Add all of that up and draw your own conclusions, some time yet imho.

Nearly Nigel's explaination of the pros and cons of a seniority list seems to refer to one particular list, BA. He concludes by stating that it benefits the company more than the pilot. That may or may not be so, but it is not the point. There are considerable beneifits for the pilots.

Seniority lists protect the pilots from the company in many ways. For example promotion. If your face doesn't fit with whatever management are in situ, you will be passed over regardless of service. Seniority protects you against that. If you are paid by route/type etc. the same applies. When your turn comes you get your choice, they cannot pass over you for some impatient brown noser.

Finally safety. It may be difficult for the most talented 1500 hours pilots ( of which an endless stream appear here ) to understand but a dunce with 20,000 hours has certain advantages over them. Wait a few years and you will learn why. Change seats and you will rapidly learn why. Why is it 30 year Beckham could tell more talented Rooney a thing or two about retaliation in a World Cup?

Nearly Nigel concludes that Seniority benefits the company because:
A) in a glut they can change your t&cs.
NN in a shortage with no seniority they could just fire the senior guys to cut costs. No doubt Lucifer would like this until he reaches the top quicker than expected only to be fired midway through what he thought was a career.
B) in a shortage they retain their workforce and any improvement is a trickle up philosophy that takes too long.
NN with respect I think you are merging Seniority and Unions into one area. Seniority is fine and should be completely transparent. It's like a fixed rate mortgage, you know exactly what you will get in the future. If your bank decides unilaterally to change your rate for the worse and you cant get a solicitor or omdubsman to protect you, dont blame fixed rates.
The different unions throughout the industry have varying success rates at protecting our t&cs. This is not the fault of Seniority but rather the people on the list and obviously the unions involved.

For example, excuse my ignorance of BAs situation, but if you have three separate pensions then the unions have messed up. The 3 groups will be defined by seniority but the situation must have arisen due to a poor defense of t&cs by the pilots/unions.

Equally if different groups do not see the benefit of a united position defending all members of the seniority list at all times then you might as well tear up the list. Walsh will merely attack each group one at a time and in the absence of a united front they will all lose.

LONDON (AFX) - British Airways PLC said operating profits rose 19.9% to £211m in the first quarter and said it carried 4.3% more passengers in the period.
BA said pretax profit in the three months to June 30 climbed 57.3% to £195m and basic earnings per share were up 65% to 13.2p.

The airline delivered an operating margin of 9.1%. Total debt now
stands at £3.9bn and with cash of £2.8bn, our net debt is down to
£1.1bn.

Yet they still can't afford to pay our pensions???

It would appear BA are winding up many of their frontline staff right now with unworkable practices, more crew/groundstaff reductions where it would be impossible to offer any modicum of a 'premium' airline service, more pay cuts and of course the pension issue....

No way can they sit on their laurels,but its all going way too far....
Normal service will (and already is) beginning to suffer...

And yet again, some staff are pushed to breaking point with an uncaring/unlistening management.

I''ve heard of at least 2 strikes in the offing - unfortunate, but surely people realise that BA's staff are so frequently pushed to it because the company will not listen.......................

Hasn't anyone else picked up on the fact that THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PENSIONS TRUSTEES - Roger Maynard, was given over 106,000 BA shares in June - a value of OVER £400,000.

Conflict of interest??????

Faire d'income,

My post on seniority was not supposed to be exhaustive, and I thank you for adding your thoughts. May I be allowed to amend my position slightly in view of the comments you have added?

I was just trying to point out that there are advantages for both sides in having an established (and effectively policed) seniority list. The union involvement in policing it effectively WRT promotion and redundancy is a slightly separate issue from its existence in the first place though and I also agree with all your points regarding us needing to stick together. Unfortunately us Nigels do not have a particularly good historical record in that direction.

You are so right about the need for effective union representation though. As an example, I have worked in a company where promotion was at the whim of the Chief Training Captain despite us having had a seniority list. The guys and gals not on the 'popular' list didn't even get a crack at a command course.

So maybe I might be allowed to amend my summing up (quoted above) to the following...

I've just spotted this little quote from the Transport Minister Dr. Stephen Ladyman.

It's in response to a question and answer session on various transport matters posed by The Consumers' Association on the back of this June's Which? magazine.

Q) A £1 levy on air tickets has been proposed to cover people when airlines go bust - why do you oppose it?

A) We don't charge a levy in any other area of commerce in case the company you're dealing with is going to go broke. More importantly, I think companies like British Airways, which are not going to go broke, had the argument - and I think it is a legitimate one - "Why should we make our passengers pay £1 so that some under-financed airline can take our business away?"

Now don't let the thread drift away into debating the £1 levy, but I thought it was worth quoting our very own Transport Minister suggesting that British Airways are not going to go broke.

Yet according to Willy & Co, we are in grave danger of doing so if we don't achieve the fabled 10% operating margin. Talking of which, net debt has reduced by £1.4 billion over the past year (with only an 8.5% operating margin), yet the trustees have stated that they agree that the company can't afford the ongoing cost of the current increased pension contributions which are only about £235 million per year.

Something smells bad to me.

Hmm! If asked to choose between a Labour government spokesperson and WW as to whom I would believe...................................:ugh:

When the chariman of the trustees - Roger Maynard - is the company's director of strategy, then a conflict of interest is bound to exist!

Perhaps you should change your alias, Mr Human Factor!

There are lots of comments regarding general business here which amazes me how naive some of the comments are.

For example:
10% margins in business is tiny at an operating level compared to companies the size of BA, including many airlines and travel companies.

Management bonus in most airlines are based on improving margins. Revenue and therefore profit sits in the hands of very few managers.

No airline management team I have known (and that is several across different countries and cultures) sees any company benefits in seniority. Companies want to pay a market rate (high or low) and promote the best irrespective of time with the company. Seniority means the new guys are low experience and therefore make this impossible.

Most people have seen there pension go down the hole, including final pension schemes - whats so special about BA pilots.

99% of occupations get promotions and pay rises on merit. Pilots get them on making the grade.

By the way I have an ATPL,before you ask but also have a large amount of business experience.

Then you may well understand the game that BA management are up to better than most, swedish.

BTW the Cambridge dictionary has naive as :

"naive, naïve adjective

too willing to believe that someone is telling the truth, that people's intentions in general are good or that life is simple and fair."

If you were alluding to me then I don't believe that BA management have good intentions toward anything other than their bonus

swedish
 

I'm not sure where you are coming from with your post, then again I'm only a lowly ATPL with a 70's BSc so forgive my ignorance,.
You are right, a 10% margin is not a lot compared with other industries but that's not my problem, the managers volunteered, just like me, to work in an aviation enviroment. - they /you? knew the norm so what's your point? that I should take a permanent hit in my benefits to allow you to get 20% margin?
.....If you want an easy job with a 20% margin then get a job with a bank and forget the ATPL.
"Most people have seen there pensions go down the hole" - well apart from proving that as a mere pilot my grasp of English is better than your's (hint: it is "their" not "there" ,,,,have you ever written a business paper?) there is no logic in your statement ..just because you claim that the majority have seen their pensions go down the hole does not mean it is right/moral thing to do.
"99% of occupations get promotions and pay rises on merit. Pilots get them by making the grade"....the difference between merit and making the grade being? If I was you I'd go back to the day job and forget management.
Hey, I've just thoiught..you are a manager with an ATPL..you are not Willie Walsh are you?

Oh, and swedish: Have you seen the operating margin of Tesco and the like?

Also, a sustained 10% margin at BA is easily sufficient to pay off the entire pension deficit

Overstress

By the way I also have an ATPL before you ask, but also have business experience.

PS: Part of BA's problem is that it fails to attract top-notch management at the higher level. eg: selling 'Go' is widely regarded as the corporate blunder of the decade....

swedish said

I tend to agree.

The moment senior directors, and managers suffer the same fate, the position of the pilots will be seriously damaged!

However does Bob Ayling make ends meet on a £1,000,000 pension, after so few years of service?

Just remind me what Rod retired on?

And:

Few more so, on a daily basis than aircraft captains, eh swedish?

Our pilots at BA are top professionals and some are the best in the business. Thread readers should not assume that the minor complaints of a few reflect the major opinions. Like many in UK plc BA staff are unhappy at the pension situation but in the end they will just bite the bullet.

HZ123 - your mates on the Ramp may be willing to bite the bullet, but if you don't believe the pilots will strike you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

As it stands I will lose more than 40% of my pension. Not going to happen.

Do not believe the management spin that pilots take out more of the pension pot than we put in (lie - no group does) that pilots are leaving NAPS (lie - we are fighting to keep it) or that only pilots stand to suffer from the changes (lie - do you really think anyone will be better off?).

Please visit Befairba.org . They are trying to split us at the moment. We would like your support but we do not need it.

Do they honestly expect me to believe that with a 10% margin BA will be a strong, profitable company, but at 9.2% or 8.9% we will be bankcrupt? In the last 5 years we have paid off at least £5 billion of debt without anything near 10 or even 9%.

Apologies for the English - I'll write in my native Swedish next time and you can pick holes in that was well.
I am not an airline manager, I am a pilot. I just don't like the way things work and I'll be getting out as soon as the mortgage is paid off. I love flying but hate sitting next to the majoirty who are only intestested in how much money they can make / save and don't care about the rest of the team or the company - that doesn't give me a quality of life.

You can post in Swedish if you like but it won't disguise the fact that you fundamentally misunderstand the position of pilots in BA. In fact it's better that you don't post at all and leave us to defend our pensions.

Not just BA either.......
 

It's a fact - ALL airline managements are trying to undermine the professional status that pilots have historically (and justifiably) had. Just look at the charter sector where I work. They would like to see incremental pay scales go and pay rises limited to what the rest of the company gets.
Fine, BUT, no acount is made of the twice annual threat to our existance and livelihood (medicals and sim). Furthermore, there is no acknowledgement that for some, a debt of some £60K put them in the flight deck.
We in the UK are STILL underpaid. Strike?? Yes.......why not. Let's ALL do it! :ok:

swedish - your English is far superior to that of some of our managers! Good luck - when I pay off my mortgage I'm packing it in as well - just not prepared to let BA mgt steal 40% of my pension.

PS: Thread readers should not assume that HZ123's posting reflects the angry mood of BA NAPS pilots. It doesn't.

Surely the answer it to offer individuals the chance to buy the pension out. I haven't looked at the value of the company but a "share for pension" offer would benefit both the staff and the shareholders. What I find morally unacceptable is the suggestion that BA should walk away from its commitment to what is deferred salary.

40% is a lot and after gordon brown taking some of it you will be lucky to have any thing so the strike does make sense to me now

You boys have it too good, I want this I want that... Give me a break pls. If you want all that become a lawyer and then yo can just rip people off!

Still looking for that first flying job, Hasher, if your profile is anything to go by? "Fly for Food"?

Best of luck.

BA pension strike = now inevitable. Timescale circa October at a guess.