New British Airways strike dates announced

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• Roger says:

  4 Jan4 January 05:37

  OT
  How do I check Avios credit for flights for BA household account.
  This is for my kids on our Iberia flights over Christmas.
  Also do I need to claim points on Aadvanatge manually as even though in booking I provided Iberia with my AAdvanatge number it was not printed on boarding pass and miles have not been credited yet.

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 08:18

    You would need to retroclaim the AA credit via the AA website, there is presumably an online form.

    You can individually log in to your kids BA accounts. Alternatively, log into the head of the HHA and you will see, under their personal Avios total, a separate total for the HHA.

• Charlie says:

  4 Jan4 January 07:47

  …and I bet they get told all the time the job must be a dream flying to all those exotic locations. £16,000 in an area of the country with high cost of living – I can’t blame them.

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:56

    Yet they still get thousands of applications every time they are recruiting so it can’t all be bad, many people are willing to do it.

    We complain when they try to reduce costs on board, complain when they try to reduce staff costs and complain when their prices are too high. Surely if we want a high level of service, well paid staff we need to choose that with our wallets, unfortunately we are not willing to do that in any great numbers and so the errosion will continue.

    • Charlie says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:08

      I’ve no idea what they’re promised in recruitment and interview. I look at from the area of business I work in. I train people for a highly desired and hugely oversubscribed role (300 applicants for 1 job advertised for 1 week most recently). Unfortunately we pay the least probably in the country but are based in the South East. I have no say in recruitment but only training.

      All that means is we have an incredibly high turnover of staff with those trained either burning out and leaving the profession or moving to another area to do the same work for literally thousands more. People are willing to do more if remuneration is fair.

      It means we have overall an inexperienced workforce, which the management doesn’t mind as new employees are paid far less. We can all see the need to have experienced dedicated workers. They can’t.

      BA command higher prices than many LCC airlines, so there’s money there surely to change this attitude.

    • Oyster says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:11

      Oh please. If we were talking about BA struggling to break even then you’d have a point.

      But BA is operating on margins never seen before in its history, with a windfall of low oil prices, and yet they still seem fit to screw their lowest paid staff.

      • the real harry says:

        4 Jan4 January 08:18

        you have conveniently forgotten:
        massive pension deficit needs to be addressed
        ageing fleet needs to be replaced
        over-paid 85% of staff on the old contracts but heavily unionised so can’t be right-sized

        • Leo says:

          4 Jan4 January 08:30

          And you don’t address the issue of screwing over the lowest paid staff….

        • Rob says:

          4 Jan4 January 08:37

          Last time I checked, firing people purely because you now consider them overpaid is not legal 🙂

          BA regularly waves big voluntary redundancy packages at the ‘old contract’ crew members. Quite a few who are fed up with where the airline is going take it, but realistically if you are on £40k as senior cabin crew you won’t easily match that elsewhere.

        • the real harry says:

          4 Jan4 January 08:51

          (Leo) the lowest paid staff were offered a pay rise that Unite considered fair so recommended
          the staff are of course within their rights to withdraw labour if they do not themselves consider the % increase fair
          but I’d like to see modern strike rules brought in where (for example) a clear majority of all unionised staff must vote in favour of a strike before that strike becomes legal
          – currently abstainers don’t count, which in my eyes is wrong, most of them would be voting no if they were’t scared of being victimised by more militant colleagues so this equates to a bad strike decision heavily influenced by bullying & intimidation

      • Rob says:

        4 Jan4 January 09:39

        But the oil price is (probably) only temporary and is the cause for the record profits. however pay is permenant. If they started to pay based on money made hedging oil prices they would soon be making redundancies when the price goes back up.

    • Paul says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:48

      Rob Sorry but that sounds very much like a BA apologist talking. Their basic pay is £12k a year, you cannot live on such poverty pay. They then get £3/hr for flying so on an 10 hour return sector they get a further £60. If that is the full extent of their pay then that is shocking.
      Its not that people object to paying higher fares, BA fares ex LHR are by some way the most expensive in western Europe, they also have fees on redemptions bookings even when the operating carrier does not. The CEO is grossly overpaid as are many of the senior board and as others have pointed out they are making margins that were previously unheard off. Time to do the right thing and pay properly, I think we have all had enough of being told that only the rich can get richer

      • Andrew says:

        4 Jan4 January 09:25

        If these staff members feel they’re worth more money then they can always resign and go and work for an employer who’s willing to pay them more if they can find one. 1200 people handing their notice in tomorrow would send a far stronger message to BA management than an occasional strike.

      • Rob says:

        4 Jan4 January 09:45

        Not an apologist, Just fed up of hearing people complain.

        Yes BA flights cost more than Easyjet flights but as Easyjet pay c.10,000 basic this would already appear to be reflected. Also BA must subsidise the legacy contracts. Personally I would love to see higher wages and better conditions but we need to be realistic. Legacy airlines are already losing out to LCC when they are twice as expensive if they stopped making cut backs then no one would choose them when they are 5 times as expensive.

        I agree that the CEO is probably overpaid, but again if he took a pay cut, even 50% it would unlikely make more than a blip of difference to the wages of the flight crew.

        • Rob says:

          4 Jan4 January 11:18

          BA and easyJet do not compete, except out of Gatwick. Let’s be honest, the money lives in West London – in general – and Heathrow will always be the most convenient airport. I don’t even know why BA is fighting over the scraps from the bargain bucket brigade.

          A sensible strategy would be to offer a premium short-haul product so that those people who pay £350 for a day return to Frankfurt on Lufthansa switch across to BA. That is a better idea than trying to encourage more £39 each-way pax.

          You don’t see Waitrose running around claiming that it needs to compete with Aldi so it will start selling its stuff out of cardboard boxes and scrap 80% of its lines. There is a market that Waitrose can get and it serves them.

          That is what HFP does, to a certain extent. I could dumb down this site very easily and it might increase readership – but those new readers are unlikely to be in the market for Amex Platinum cards or whatever else I can monetise. I’m happier with 25,000 well paid London professionals, which is effectively what the readership is.

      • Lady London says:

        4 Jan4 January 13:44

        @Paul based on your above figures then cabin crew flying 40 hours per week are getting, say, another £6,000. Still not good, and ridiculous if they are all having to live anywhere within reach of London. But a lot better than £12K per year. Perhaps they may be claiming other allowances also.

        I am deeply disturbed by what globalisation is doing to lower and even middle-paid people in the West right now. I’m also tired of Britain being run for the benefit of the owners of assets and capital and the workers’ share getting worse. Whilst those in power continue to be hypocritical about it and effectively say to the workers “take it or leave it then”. But I’d wager most of the affected crew are effectively on a lot more than the £12K figure you mention.

• Concerto says:

  4 Jan4 January 08:00

  But they’re so well off, IAG could afford to pay their staff a bit better. That’s worse than what I got from opera houses in east Germany! And east Germany is much cheaper to live in than London.

  • the real harry says:

    4 Jan4 January 08:53

    IAG are not remotely well off as a company, they are just recovering from being considered a basket case, see my comment above

    • Stuart says:

      4 Jan4 January 10:00

      “IAG are not remotely well off as a company”

      British Airways and Iberia’s parent company IAG reported a 64% rise in yearly pre-tax profits to €1.8bn (£1.4bn)

      Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35662763

      • the real harry says:

        4 Jan4 January 10:33

        British Airways has missed the regulatory deadline for agreeing a plan to fill its multibillion pound pension deficit, because of a legal dispute over increased payouts for retired workers.By June 30, the airline was meant to have agreed a way of making good the funding deficit in its two main pension schemes, which stood at £3.3bn in 2012.

        But, on Tuesday, its parent company, International Airlines Group, revealed that this deadline had not been met…
        British Airways is currently making contributions of about £300m a year to plug its scheme deficits.
        https://www.ft.com/content/12e0a5e6-42a1-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d

        and how much do you think it will cost to replace the ageing fleet?

        You need to look at the wider financial picture

        • Lady London says:

          4 Jan4 January 13:55

          Planes are leased anyway and a bit like cars, I gather a lot of the time they don’t actually end up always being paid much for, if leases are done smartly.

          As I’ve mentioned before I have NO pity for any large company that has closed its final salary pension scheme, or robbed it by using enhanced pension payouts or early retirements with pensions, to stuff the pension scheme with the cost of redundancies. This was frequently done by large company pension schemes that I know of, in past years. In other words, pension schemes who robbed other workers and future workers by taking money out of the pension scheme to fund redundancies and severance packages.

          I have NO sympathy for any large company that now says they’re underfunded, as I watched so many of them do that in the past. Or they disregarded sound investment advice and the company took “pension holidays” and didn’t keep paying in, in good years, so that liabilities to pay pensions could still be met in the future by balancing good years with bad years and changes in conditions. So now pension schemes are bleating that they are underfunded? Tough.

        • Genghis says:

          4 Jan4 January 16:10

          Depends on the airline. Easyjet for instance own 189/257 aircraft as at 30 Sep 16 with relatively low (as a size of SFP) borrowings.

      • insider says:

        4 Jan4 January 10:36

        But a huge chunk of that cash then has to fund the pension deficit and capital expenditure. I guess if you don’t want them to replace planes ever, then yes it’s quite a big profit

        • Rob says:

          4 Jan4 January 11:10

          I doubt replacing a plane has a huge negative cost because you are getting rid of high maintenance costs and poor fuel efficiency on the aircraft you replace, plus getting a few quid upfront when you sell it (and you are borrowing money over the long term for the replacement).

        • Temp says:

          4 Jan4 January 12:19

          … at record low interest rates and with manufacturers, lessors and banks falling over themselves to provide them. Article below from 2010 still covers this problem quite well.

          https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/capacity-hanging-in-the-balance-338423/

    • james says:

      4 Jan4 January 18:33

      @trh
      takes one to know one! 🙂

• Paul says:

  4 Jan4 January 08:50

  Despite my support for this action I think they have blown it in terms of impact. The strike over Christmas would have had a bigger impact and the TU should have seen this and pressed accordingly. BA offered more as they saw the impact such action would have but now they may have the upper hand at a time when load factors are generally lower.

  • Paul says:

    4 Jan4 January 10:29

    BA’s contingency was to not cancel a single flight… Its the quietest day of the year and they have many crew standing spare.

    The revised pay offer was only marginally better, hence why Unite didn’t recommend it

• Paul says:

  4 Jan4 January 10:27

  I really wouldn’t use the salary figures quoted by Unite! BA have internally published they average salary (they are refusing to make this a public issue), they have also offered Unite access to the raw data, but unite have not taken this offer up.

  I know one crew member of 75% hours, who earns £18k and full time crew who earn more.

  Unite did not recommend the revised offer, but did put it to an electronic vote (one that had no checks on who you were and didn’t limit the number of times you could vote).

  BA have offered the original pay rise (2% backdated to April) to non-union members who can apply to have it backdated and applied from January pay. If any better deal is reached they will get this too. Apparently, BA say, they can not offer the original deal to Unite members because they have already rejected it and BA needs Unites permission to offer it again.

• Andi Hawes says:

  4 Jan4 January 10:40

  I’m flying in from GVA the night before on the last flight landing around 2345 on 9th into Heathrow… you think it will be affected? i know strike starts 10th but you knoiw how these things have a Pre and Post affect…

• Andrew H says:

  4 Jan4 January 11:57

  Slightly O/T…

  Heathrow are supposed to have reduced their charges on domestic flights. I had a look at BA from LHR to MAN and I can’t see any difference to before. Has anyone seen any price drops yet?

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 12:13

    If they can fill the plane charging the current prices, why would they reduce them?

• the_real_a says:

  4 Jan4 January 12:16

  Could someone please suggest a fair salary for cabin crew please. Genuinely curious.

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