You cannot trust Walsh. He moved the goalposts in the cabin crew dispute over the cost savings BASSA offered. I believe he will start BA Express anyway after he has got the deal he wants over the BMI takeover. And what would you do then? You would be done up like a kipper.

As for sharing information on the figures, when BALPA 'saw the books' (well, one set anyway) the reps were convinced that the airline was in a terminal downward financial spiral, until with perfect timing the volcano erupted and Walsh suddenly found £1bn in cash reserves and a secure line of credit up to £6bn. From 'fight for survival' to that in 8 months. Not bad going. Even in the EU they cannot match that for creative accounting.

Clearly shorthaul at LHR will not continue in its present form anyway. The extra APD on Club Europe tickets is killing that segment and will take a further hit in April. Walsh loves to start confusion and in-fighting. He managed to convince BA's pilots that the airline was in a "fight for survival" just becuase of cabin crew pay. Whilst cabin crew pay is much lower at LGW anyway, he leaves the pilots with their mainline wages, accomodation before and after flights, double nights for short longhaul sectors with a two man crew and so on.

Like the cabin crew, the BA flight crew are playing a defensive game against a hostile and agressive CEO. You are asking for nothing other than being left alone. There is no enthusiasm for the BMI takeover if it means this - an attack on your T&C's. As for the BMI guys, do you really want to be part of a dysfunctional airline that is racked with industrial relations problems, and be the catalyst of a pernicious downward spiral of pay and conditions at BA?

Stop trolling mate. :=:=:=

Virgin can't even make ORD work all year round and they have a significant frequency disadvantage against BA on other routes. BA short-haul "tops up" London O&D traffic to support high frequencies that business customers value and provides top-up when London demand is soft and when there are currency advantages from sales outside the UK.

The pathological obsession with Walsh is a misnomer.

IAG is spending up to £170m of its shareholders' money buying a business (which thanks to the restructuring of BA under WW and the IB merger it is able to do so from its own cash reserves without, like Virgin, having to find external financing which is in very short supply at the moment) that is bleeding red ink and has cost its current owner close to £1bn in acquisition costs and losses.

It is axiomatic to anyone with a shred of of business acumen that you can't turn around a loss making business if by integrating it into the acquirer you immediately inflate the cost base. Whilst bmi slots will ultimately be used to grow long-haul this will be a gradual process that over years not months, so bmi's network will, to a large extent, continue as it is for some time.

It is business. Nothing to do with personal agendas etc.

No we don't, or at least I don't. Please vote NO to the proposals.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement and no doubt one that was designed to catch the attention of non BA employees.

It's hardly the airline that's racked with industrial problems, most groups, - pilots, baggage handlers, ground staff, office staff are trying to move with the times and are engaging with the company in a mature way - tough though that may be in the current climate.

The main "industrial relation problem" seems to be elements of one employee group that seem unable to move on from recent events ( precipitated by dire union leadership) and seem intent on blaming everybody else, from WW down, but especially the pilots, for their predicament.

Max,

The last thing you want is for us to vote No. If BMI is run as a separate entity, I don't want to see what your contract will be like - and more especially your pay - ninety days after the take over at the end of the TUPE period. See what is happening in Madrid at the moment for guidance. :eek:

This is exactly what BA (and BMI) pilots are being given the opportunity to avoid.

Oh dear!

The Count can't help himself with his 'B_S'.

Count, if you want to wallow in misery after BASSA's catastrophic failures, then start a thread all of your own eh? Please don't troll and try and hijack a thread, that is being sensibly debated by others!!

Much is made of what BA pilots desire out of the acquisition of BMI by IAG. What do the BMI pilots want?

Just to add a perspective, a very senior manager at BA told me that if BMI is a stand-alone opco at LHR, he fully expects IAG to wait 6 months, and offer slashed pay and T&C's as a take it or leave it. He believes IAG are happy to sit out any ensuing strike, and only then will they start the transfer across of routes and investment.

Either way we are all between a rock and a hard place:hmm:

Merge or be damned
 

Very successful actually, although poorly paid, its called B.A. Cityflyer. If one cuts cost to the bone it is not pretty but it can be used keep the BA group flag flying.

Ref: BA Cityflyer.

The problem Wiggy that BA's cabin crew had were the decisions of two judges, who annulled ballots and granted BA injunctions, the first time because the judge was using arguments outside of her remit, and the second time the judge considered it so grave that BASSA had not informed the whole membership of 11 spoilt ballot papers.

It is something to consider amongst those who are calling for a NO vote now. BA will use every legal means to thwart strike action and overturn a democratic ballot via the 'Establishment'. Judges will never favour workers who wish to disrupt commerce. Today in every day parlance, this sort of managment action is now known as "British Airways tactics"

During the cabin crew dispute it was clear that sympathetic BALPA reps were prepared to marshall their members to act as strike breakers. Although other groups of BA workers followed suite, it was the authority and leadership of BA's pilots in being at the vanguard of undermining BASSA's plans, that encouraged the VCC programme. Now BA's flight crew are on the receiving end and in a terrible quandary.

BALPA will be placed in an invidious position if Walsh's deal is rejected. It naturally goes against the instincts of its members to 'kick over the traces', who thought by cosying up to Walsh they would garner a halo protection from a fellow aviator and ex-union negotiator. The treatment of BA's cabin crew in having their staff travel taken away, and many strikers dismissed including the Branch Secretary of BASSA, was a shop window for all BA employees of what sanctions would be meted out if they fall out of line.

Walsh has calculated that the BMI takeover is an opportunity not to be missed. I suggest that if anyone is in doubt where Walsh is going and why he was protected over the T5 opening debacle, you need to study his 'Triple A' plan. In this paper his concept of a global premium airline with a low cost base is spelt out.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...8y6UZoreZJkQMg

Oh Jeez. We're really not.

No one likes giving up any of their terms and conditions. Just ask anyone thinking about joining SHELL, the last FTSE 100 company to close its final salary pension scheme to new members. One wonders whether somewhere in a galaxy far far away there are a bunch of oil exploring hold poolers bemoaning the current workforce for neglecting the responsibilities of their "stewardship".

Some people around here need to get real. Aviation is a changing game, always has been and always will be. Is this deal perfect? No. What it does do though is ensure that all pilots will remain on a single seniority list. It ensures future opportunites for promotion and is infinitely better than the alternative, which would be to play a game of high stakes poker with a crap hand. You might win 10% of the time, but that is a risk the majority of us are unwilling to take.

So, to review. Does this mean you will earn slightly less over the course of a career? Yes. On balance, is BA still the best outfit to work for in the UK over the long term? Yes.

Like others on these forums have said, if you have a different opinion then head east and try your luck negotiating for better.

Count

There's actually a lot in your post I agree with, especially your comments with regard to the state of the law in the UK and BA's willingness to use it, but you spoilt it all by stating:

No, it was not clear ..... and I suspect you know that.


One, singular, 1, BALPA Rep resigned his post to become a Volunteer Cabin Crew Member. Our Comms from the remaining Reps and the Company Council were adamant and consistent in stating that BALPA should remain neutral over the dispute (and with your apparent grasp of UK industrial legislation you will of course understand why BALPA had to be neutral in it's statements and more importantly it's actions.....) There was no attempt by either BALPA as an organisation or it's Reps, to marshall anyone as strike breakers.

Gentlemen. The significance of the analogy between a previous dispute at BA and Walsh's latest efforts, is that united we stand, divided we fall. The clever manipulation by Walsh to involve other employees to "save BA", has diluted trade unionism in the airline and fostered an 'I'm alright Jack' culture. There is always envy within groups of workers in a large organisation about what they consider their worth. Engineers at BA may consider themselves underpaid, and regard baggage handlers as overpaid for the training and skill required for their profession.

In British Airways it seemed everyone disliked the cabin crew..... but coveted their job. Hence the legions of VCC's from dreary dead end jobs in Waterside and Newcastle, who fancied this opportunity to fly as cabin crew. I can assure you that no cabin crew would ever volunteer to be baggage handlers.

BA flight crew are on a hiding to nothing if they consider industrial action, as the rank and file of BA will be turned against them in a blitz of propaganda and rhetoric from IAG in Madrid. They will be accused of shafting the belated efforts of BA management to turn shorthaul around into profitablility. And before you know it, the wrath of Walsh will unleash a holocaust of further attacks on the sacred Bidline, and whist he is at it, the final salary pension scheme will be terminated for current employees. You only have to witness what is going on at Unilever. The final salary pension scheme ended, not due to concerns of the financial viability of the company, but simply to increase shareholder value.


The greatest mistake that BA's pilots made was not to support their cabin crew colleagues. That decision has weakened trade unionism as a whole in BA, and has neutered the will of BA flight crew to fight for anything in the future. This is a defining moment and definitely not a time to roll over as it will only bring a temporary respite. Much worse is in the pipeline.

Not to mention that a strike breaker is someone who is part of a union yet breaks a strike by THEIR union. No pilot was a strike breaker (nor ground staff etc) as none of them are BASSA members.

Count N,

Hollow rhetoric again. You can make your grandiloquent statements about motivation all you like. It doesn't make it true. You purport, time and time again, to speak for the motivation of great swathes of people and to have an insight into their inner psychology, their jealousies and their desires. Not backed up by one simple fact.

So driven are you to lay the blame for the VCC programme at the feet of the pilots that you come out with such hogwash as us acting as vanguards and marshallers of the programme. I defy you to provide one single scrap of proof of this happening. To save you the bother, proof counts as some documentary evidence and not an e-mail from Admin.

Any chance you have of making a cogent, salient point appears to disappear under the weight of your badly disguised discontent with the flight crew community and it serves your argument poorly especially when laced with the narcissism quite often evident in BASSA statements.

BTW, apropos of one part of your statement. We are on a hiding to nothing if we consider industrial action. It's why we're not considering it. It's not an option in this case. As I've mentioned elsewhere to Studli, there isn't a nuclear button on this one - it's the choice of the least worst outcome. Difference is, as much as you'd like to allude to this being some form of divine retribution, one of the outcomes still has us all as the one and only pilot body in the BA OpCo. Not something that can be said of crew due to their union's insistence on going nuclear. Deny it all you will, and allude all you will to this situation being analogous to yours, but the fundamental difference is that right now "legacy" (dreadful word) cabin crew have no prospect of any numbers really swelling their ranks ever again. We're agitating hard to ensure that doesn't happen with us. BA/IAG recognise this is important to us and, unsurprisingly, they attach an opportunity cost to this important element.

That's what we're picking over, not whether or not "our time has come". Our time (and yours and everyone else's) will always have come in this industry. The wise individual and the wise collective recognise this and try to mitigate the effects for their own continued survival. I'd argue that whilst BASSA et al might have fought with a blaze of passion, they did not, ultimately, win for the long run. The retention of what you have got is all well and good but main crew will, to all intents and purposes always be main crew, pursers always pursers and the seniority will not move much around the numbers that are currently there. I know that's already gypping some individuals.

Bear in mind, BASSA by their actions and their words created a lot of VCCs. Piss enough people off and they'll bite you back and whilst the words of DH and his ilk might play well in the cabin crew community, a lot of people considered his demented rhetoric so insulting that they felt no discomfort when presented with the choice of believing the company in the "fight for survival" or BASSA and their continual lambasting and denigration of anyone they decided to turn their laptop against.

As for your insinuation that the judge ruled outside their competency. feel free to run that one past any appeals court you like. Think you'll win? By win, I mean on a solid legal point. Not, we didn't like the result so they must be in BA's back pocket which, let's be honest, is about all that BASSA et al have ever really been able to muster as an argument. Unfortunately for you the law doesn't revolve around your sense of righteous indignation. You failed on a point of law. It would behove you greatly to act in an adult fashion and work out a more watertight attempt next time rather than trying to make playground insinuations.

I've said this to you before and I rather think this time I'll stick to it but we're going round in circles here. You prefer the grandiose statements of "fact" backed up with ephemeral and cryptic references to the motivations of individuals and groups. I prefer dealing with the here and now and what I consider to be the pragmatic whys and wherefores. You will, naturally, disagree, and point to Wikipedia definitions of solidarity and unionism that do not play in the current legislative theatre.

And on that note, I'll leave it because this is so far off topic as to be virtually irrelevant.

A few points regarding attempts at post-event rationalisation/rewriting history:

1. Can we please drop the tasteless (and very familiar from a recent industrial dispute) references to a "holocost".

2. It is worth recalling that the VCC programme was only launched after BASSA announced 12 days of industrial action over the Christmas period. An act which completely squandered any support/benefit of the doubt for cabin crew. I would surmise that (and the fact that every other department was doing their bit to make savings), more than anything else, prompted support for the VCC programme, not envy of the cabin crew role, nor pilots. And I doubt anyone realistically thought that by volunteering as VCC they were gaining special protection or the right to call in a favour from the company.

3. The 12 days of industrial action was of course stopped by a court injunction. Aside from this being a blessing in disguise for all, the reason why BA obtained an injunction was because of the not insignificant errors of BASSA balloting circa 1,000 members who weren't eligible to vote, BASSA Chair Lizanne Malone giving incorrect advice on eligibility to vote, and BASSA going ahead and calling a strike even though it had been given warning of voting irregularities.

Most might say that the injunction against the 2nd ballot wasn't justified, but BA doesn't make the law and if it's advised that the industrial action can be stopped by an injunction, it has a fudiciariy responsibility to do so.

4. There is absolutely no doubt that at the time the company was facing very severe trading conditions with a very large fall in long haul premium traffic revenue and not tackling the cost base simply wasn't an option. Anyone who thinks that the company was pulling a stunt should look at BA's financial accounts for the year ended 31 March 2010. In that financial year the company had to contend with a fall in revenue of £1bn. In spite of this, to give management some credit, they managed to keep the operating loss broadly constant. This was thanks in part to a £600m fall in the fuel bill. If fuel had gone the other way, there was every possibility the company could have gone bust or lost the confidence of creditors and investors. And if the latter happens things can spiral out of control very quickly.

You need only look at the announcement Thomas Cook made to the markets late last year about the state of its finances and the effect that had to see how confidence in a travel business can easily be lost.

Now back to the bmi integration.

Count

you have several problems.

You don't seem able to understand the nature of this, or previous, industrial issues.

You are suffering from written "diarrhea". Just because one uses a lot of long words it doesn't necessarily mean they have relevance or purpose.

Try to accept that the cabin crew dispute didn't fail because of "strikebreakers", or judges, or 1 BA captain, or "the law" ,or other staff groups covetting the crew job, or that it was even Willie's fault. Stop telling and repeating lies.

Wrong issues, wrong timing, poor leadership!

For just 1 day engage an open mind , read some facts, and consider whether Bassa gave you accurate information and advice. And where is the money??

More and more crew seem to exercising the brains and their rights recently.
People like the Count are on the way out - or have already gone.

So that's a YES then. Done deal. Fait accompli.

Thank you. It has been an interesting debate.

Why don't you take your mind off it & go to the sales Luvvie !

The way I see it, there is a big analogy between a point in the BASSA negotiations with the company and where BALPA are now.

That point was about 6 months in from memory when BA offered to withdraw the threat of Mixed Fleet from the table. Unfortunately, with a total lack of imagination, any attempt at serious negotiation, or offsetting some of the frankly ludicrous legacy agreements that could have been signed away by cabin crew (Early report day?) BASSA decided to stick with the "Just say no" approach.

As a result my partner is now in a declining fleet, with little or no promotion prospects, a reducing destinations list, no ability to increase her part time contract.

The same thing applies to the pilots now.... We are in a position where we either decide to say no and wait for IAG to make the next move which would be BA Express at Heathrow, or try and integrate BMI pilots into the master seniority list, securing their future when frankly they were heading for redundancy. This secures not only BA's position at Heathrow but secures further expansion, while pay protecting BMI entrants under TUPE legislation.

As for Max Angle's quote:

Please feel free to leave as frankly I don't want to give anything from MY T&C's to support people with your attitude. I like the current proposal about as much as you but we are left with little choice if we want to maintain a vibrant airline with career prospects. If you want to have a crack at working under IAG and see if you maintain your current working conditions, pay and pension under a new LoCo setup then you are most welcome to have a go. You would have no protection under TUPE, no job security etc. I admit your optimism but feel it is VERY misplaced...

Suggestions that saying NO to BA's shopping list of demands by the cabin crew union, would preclude the establishment of the Mixed Fleet is pure fantasy. Project Columbus had been floated for at least 18 months before the cabin crew dispute and the blueprint, like what is happening to Flight Crew now, is at QANTAS.

There is no way BA were going to be blown off course from their main objective to establish a new cabin crew fleet. And this is the point all of the posters here have missed, the cabin crew dispute was union busting pure and simple, hidden behind a facade that a negotiated settlement was possible.

Also it is naivety in the extreme to suggest that it was possible to reason with the current management regime. BA will not integrate Mixed Fleet even though it has proved to be a disastrous decision, and the fleet has had to be removed from AMS and ATL for reasons of customer service.

If BA want to start BA Express and that is their ultimate objective, feeding the crocodile by accepting the current deal will only ensure a more aggressive attack later by Walsh, as the will to fight is diluted by the assimilation of BMI flight crew.

Count, you have that the wrong way round.

Just saying no DIRECTLY led to the establishment of Mixed fleet, it didn't preclude it.

I also don't understand why you think the assimilation of BMI would reduce our will to fight? As it stands, if BMI don't get integrated their future is extremely uncertain in terms of the T&C's they would be on in the standalone company under IAG. They would have no protections and BA flight crew would legally be unable to support them if they decided to challenge the company on their new terms.

As it stands we will be one workforce. At the end of the day I am taking a pay cut and a drop in my terms and conditions so the BMI pilots can come into BA and maintain theirs.

Whether the proposals are accepted or rejected will have no real long term effect on whatever plans WW has for BA /bmi, the end result will still be the same, he will get his low cost operation for short haul, it may take a bit longer to happen if there is a no vote, but happen it will !. All this current "offer" is meant to do is to keep the troops quiet whist bmi is swallowed up, and when that is all done and dusted the low cost issue will reappear.

Make no mistake, this is a smokescreen designed to hide the ambush hiding down the road, it may well be better to put up a fight now than try and defend your position later when you will be holding a much weaker hand to play.

Lo-Cost from LHR? What is everyone smoking?

Ok, at a significantly lower cost base than the current operation, you work out where the cost savings will be made, I know what my money is on.

I am an easyJet pilot, but have watched this debate with some interest. Can someone in-the-know please tell me why any BA pilot would want a BMI pilot to be given full seniority when they join BA? It is inconceivable to me that the BA pilots would agree to anything that damages their members' interests - and who could blame them?

Meerkat, you obviously don't understand the situation Walsh has put the BA pilots in as an alternative do you? Are you kicking yourself for leaving BMI in the past?

Meerkat, who has said they do?

Seniority cannot be discussed by law (TUPE) until a ballot rules in favour of integration.

''VIRGIN seems to survive without a shorthaul network to feed its routes''.

Having once worked for them, I would say that Virgin has survived despite the lack of a shorthaul network. They have always commented that their business model is different and that they don't need one, but they are limiting themselves to a restricted market - and I'm convinced it has hurt them in the past. What they should have done may years ago is tied up with BMI to create a more flexible network - then they would have created a more credible threat to BA's market share. But the antipathy betwwen Branson and Bishop made that scenario an impossibility.

I now work for a regional airline in Asia which was bought five years ago by it's larger longhaul neighbour. What the longhaul operator got was a network of feeder route in a very lucrative market for it and it's One World partners, including BA. Recently, I flew the CEO of the group on the jumpseat. I asked him if they knew how much value the aquisition of our airline had added to the bottom line. He mentioned that due to the ticket structuring, the actual increase in revenue was nealry impossible to calculate accurately, but there was no doubt that the aquisition was very important, which is why they paid twice the market value for us. A company ignores feeding it's long haul routes at their peril.



Sorry for the thread drift. Good luck guys and gals.

At this point in time, TUPE doesn't matter a jot. BMI is being bought in total by IAG, it is not being merged, so no-one is changing their T&C's.

But that's the whole point of our vote - if we vote Yes then BMI will be merged and our T's & C's will be changed. BMI crew will then be protected by TUPE and seniority will be discussed and a decision taken. All of this to be concluded by Jan 31st.........

I'm afraid it's only a matter of time. LHR must be the only major airport in Europe which DOESN'T have lo-co flights (But I'm prepared to be corrected on that if some are already sneaking in). Harps, Orange Tails, Air Berlin, German Wings and Vueling (owned by IAG) are everywhere else.

EZY has bases in CDG, ORY, FCO, MXP, MAD and SXF (soon to be THE Berlin airport); it will soon have one in LIS and it is always talking to CPH, ARN and AMS (where it already has a massive number of daily flights in and out). It should have one in BRU but the authorities there stubbornly insist on their high charges. Keep your eyes on MUC.

RYR mostly avoids major airports - for the moment.

Yes, it's only a matter of time.

BA's flight crew should be careful that once again, after their dreadful conduct during the cabin crew dispute, that they do not behave like a spooked herd.

It is deja-vu all over again as figures are pulled out of hats to prove a particular point, that suits someone's agenda to push through a YES vote. Like the concession BALPA made over the A380 and Airbus type ratings, accepting this deal is the thin end of the wedge.

What I am most surprised about is that the BA pilots did not see this coming. They thought after the assistance they gave to Walsh serving drinks in the cabins, that they were the special ones. Even BA's fraud policy on upgrading was re-written to accomodate them moving mates of mates via Fleetlist. No amount of intellectual and eloquent negotiations is going to get them out of this one. They may need to push the button.

What BA's flight crew should understand is that BA Express is not just about LHR. It will grow and there will be bases around Europe, possibly harmonising operations with its Spanish counterpart. It is the only way to fight Easy and RyanAir long term. Walsh is going to place his tanks on their front lawn.

If this gets through, then BA pilots may as well give up on BALPA and join the Air Transport section of UNITE, just for the legal cover.

Everyone please ignore "Count".

He is just looking to wind us up, and maybe even get someone into trouble by responding carelessly.

He (she) is talking rubbish.

If we put up a fight now, we have been told in no uncertain terms that BMI will not be integrated. That will give us a much weaker hand in the future when the separate company could be used to break a mainline strike (or vice versa).

That is why BA pilots want BMI pilots on the mainline seniority list.

Filled in your survey yet Count? Should make for some fairly balanced reading..:rolleyes:

Hi Blu,

I don't think you need to worry about advising people to ignore the "Count".

Max Angle, you asked that this proposal be voted against. Aside from some friction from the Cabin Crew, most of whom I have to say are lovely people, I would have thought that this would be a very good thing to happen to the chaps from BMI. I would be interested to know the reasoning behind your request.

One of the biggest assets BA has in my opinion, is the diverse backgrounds from which we have obtained our flight crew and I for one would look forward to working with any BMI people if that should be the way that this pans out. I have been on the receiving end of their hospitality on board on more than one occasion and was always grateful.

Whatever happens, I think most BA flight crew wish you all the best no matter what, and despite suggestions from other quarters, we realise that using you as leverage is not something that individual pilots should be held accountable for.

You do not need to be a master of The Telegraph cryptic crossword to decipher The Count's agenda. ;)

It is naked for all to see.

Ah yes ! Got it :ok:

"Conman Tzar Nite Run"

My personal view is that short haul will inevitably become lower cost over the coming years. Sure, you can´t do anything about the fees and costs of operating from Heathrow itself, but if easyJet can turn around a 320 in 40 minutes by removing the cleaners from the operation then why can´t anyone else? They are even about to trial allocated seating.

Its obvious where the savings will come from. Mixed fleet (already done), cleaners, turnaround times, one class of travel (aka more seats on board)..catering on the shorter sectors... the list goes on.

This is just the natural evolution of the aviation sector.