Poll: Do you support the BA Cabin Crew 12 day strike at Christmas?

[kibblerok]

Support for the workers from me.

 

[Westyfield2]

Argh. Just ban unions tbh.

/thread.

So a first-class passenger who has paid £3,000 for their seat is refused a steak because only six are loaded for 14 customers. Sometimes, a first-class customer may only get their third-choice main meal. They advertise fine wines in first-class, but sometimes there is only one bottle of claret provided for 14 passengers. Many times there are shortages of amenities such as wash bags, plates, cutlery and duvets which is just not good enough for the money the customer pays.

Trust me; there is no shortage of booze or food in first class .

 

[robgmun]

Frankly, Willie Walsh and Tony Woodley deserve each other; the sooner BA goes down the pan to join the dinosaurs, the better

For once i agree with you, then the public can see how unions destroy companies and this will cripple any remaining chance of Labour being re-elected

 

[Gipo]

It's going to be fun when BA goes under.

Bye bye jobs! Not just pay cuts.

 

[Spie]

BA's cabin crew are professional, caring towards their customers and proud to work for the national airline.

What utter tripe.

BA's staff used to be professional and caring. In fact some still are, but as someone who has flown BA First Class many times I have often been disgusted by the matter-of-fact nonchalance displayed by many BA cabin crew. Shame as there are still a few good ones, but I will not fly with BA again unless I have no choice, and then just short-haul economy.

 

[JayMax]

I'm very tight and careful on my spam and email addresses but somehow managed to receive a Unite 'pro-their stance' email today. They must be pulling out all the stops media wise. I've never received an email before from Unite ever.

 

[Dolph]

An interesting point of view from someone with 30 years real experience rather than some right-wing armchair pundit:

Shame it's complete crap, the figures which show how much higher BA cabin crew pay is than everyone else does not come from BA, but from the CAA, who are entirely independent...

 

[footman]

What utter tripe.

BA's staff used to be professional and caring. In fact some still are, but as someone who has flown BA First Class many times I have often been disgusted by the matter-of-fact nonchalance displayed by many BA cabin crew. Shame as there are still a few good ones, but I will not fly with BA again unless I have no choice, and then just short-haul economy.

A close friend of mine worked as BA cabin crew all his life and reached the top as a Cabin Services Director.
As such he was responsible for First Class. He was becoming increasingly frustrated by the attitude of the cabin staff and his attempts to maintain standards in First Class were met with accusations of harassment and being "old fashioned".

 

[scorza]

What utter tripe.

BA's staff used to be professional and caring. In fact some still are, but as someone who has flown BA First Class many times I have often been disgusted by the matter-of-fact nonchalance displayed by many BA cabin crew. Shame as there are still a few good ones, but I will not fly with BA again unless I have no choice, and then just short-haul economy.

I've never had the privilege of flying first class but I've heard a lot of others say pretty much the same thing, and that things have been getting a lot worse since 2005.

Looking at Walsh's career at BA it looks like an absolute disaster:

Summer 2005

Ground staff walk out in support of Gate Gourmet.

Summer 2006

British Airways was announced by the Association of European Airlines as having lost the most luggage in 2006 compared to other major European airlines. For every 1000 passengers carried, it lost 23 bags, 46% more than the average.

Summer 2007

Fuel surcharge price fixing - airline fined record £270 million.

March 2008

T5 Chaos - opening of £4.3 billion Heathrow terminal descends into chaos. It is stated that the company has, so far, lost £16 million because of this. In an interview provided for Sky News, Mr Walsh vowed to stay on at the airline.

May 2008

Record financial results. BA made an operating profit of £875 Million and achieved the long-held goal of a 10% operating margin. Walsh did not publicly take his bonus that would have been due to him as he was taking accountability for the Terminal 5 problems. He did however accept over £1m in additional payments before the end of 2008.

June 2009

Asks staff to work for nothing [3]

July 2009

Worked for nothing. [4]

December 2009

BA staff vote in favour of a 12 day strike during the busy Christmas period.

March 2010: British Airways cabin crew will go ahead with strike action after talks between the airline and the Unite union collapsed.

The three-day walkout begins at midnight 19th March, with a further four days of action set to commence on 27th March.

And his record at Aer Lingus isn't much to look at either. How do these people stay in employment and keep getting jobs?

 

[413x]

if conditions are so bad, leave and go to another airline..wait.. they all pay less!!

pretty selfish, as has been said when these workers pull the company under, many will be without jobs and those that may get one with another airline will almost undoubtedly get less than the BA counter offer

id say the vast majority of people who are caught up in this will never use ba again!

i just feel sorry for those ho dont want to strike but will end up loosing thier jobs!

 

[Dolph]

It appears there are lies, damn lies, and press statements by Unite...

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyin...parating-unite-the-unions’-fiction-from-fact/

 

[zetec452]

It appears there are lies, damn lies, and press statements by Unite...

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2010/03/21/the-british-airways-strike-separating-unite-the-unions’-fiction-from-fact/

A nice write-up. There should be some form of legislation in how much tripe a union can spout, if anything it is a waste of air.

They are falsely presenting facts to gain support. Very unprofessional imo.
Although Willie Walsh has a fairly colourful history I can’t help but feel that this is going in BA’s favour.

 

[GreatAuk]

It's going to be fun when BA goes under.

Bye bye jobs! Not just pay cuts.

This tbh...
Another example of turkeys voting for Christmas.

 

[86JR]

Do you support the BA Cabin Crew 12 day strike planned for 22nd December 2009 to 2nd January 2010?

Unless i was travelling first class, I would prefer that there be no cabin crew at all on planes.

You buys your food and drink in the terminal where its much better.

All the flights I have been on were less than 4 hours, whats four hours without food or drink or snacks ? Nothing.

 

[scorza]

It appears there are lies, damn lies, and press statements by Unite...

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyin...parating-unite-the-unions’-fiction-from-fact/

Err this a blog that thinks BA speak nothing but the gospel truth. I personally think it would be wise to take anything said by either side with a pinch of salt.

 

[Jimmeh]

Unless i was travelling first class, I would prefer that there be no cabin crew at all on planes.

You buys your food and drink in the terminal where its much better.

All the flights I have been on were less than 4 hours, whats four hours without food or drink or snacks ? Nothing.

The cabin crew are fairly important in terms of safety.

 

[Bald-Eagle22]

I heard old Lefty Ken interviewing a member of BA cabin crew on LBC Staurday morning telling evryone her take home pay of £21,000 last year was not enough in the first place £28,000 a year for servinga few cups of tea and microwaved meals sounds good to me , where do I sign up .

 

[inferno]

The people that striked will have their staff travel removed and may not be returning back to work anytime soon, heard there are going to be redundancies because of this strike. They deserve it.

 

[Third Opinion]

The worst thing is this is just the cabin crew striking. Yet the effect of this action is putting all BA workers at risk.

 

[dannyjo22]

Shame it's complete crap, the figures which show how much higher BA cabin crew pay is than everyone else does not come from BA, but from the CAA, who are entirely independent...

I'm sorry but how exactly did the CAA manage to do a salary survey of everyone in the industry. I know when they did one for engineers pay it was thousands of pounds out of what people where actually getting paid.

These figures never take into account the little ways airlines top up figures, such as Virgin having a low basic pay but you get huge bonuses for room sharing on fly aways, huge incentives. Or like my own airline that tops up through shift rotas and various unsocialble hours pay. Yet on paper the basic looks low.

Virgin pays low wages for one reason alone and everyone knows why. They don't want old ladies walking the aisles. They want young fit girls that move on for more money when mavity starts to take effect. Its purely ageism that they can get away with off the record.

I work in the airline industry and for a pay negotiation a CAA audit was used. It was a joke. I had a pay packet for a place I'd just left and the CAA figures just had the basic rate, it didn't take into account the extras paid in shift premiums, License pay or aircraft type approvals. You could fudge the figures as low as you want in an industry salary review if you don't ask the correct questions.