British Airways strikes now looking likely for early August as pilots prepare to vote

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• Larry banlamana says:

  20 Jun20 June 12:00

  Sorry to say that the staff at VS are wonderful and go the extra mile for their top customers. Found too many poor experiences on BA, so switched my support to Branson. Its the same with issues. So many emails with BA and phone calls to no avail. VS there to help promptly and showing enthusiasm. I assume pay is better at VS and this along with better benefits motivates staff better. I’m sad that I had to move my custom from BA.

  • Adam says:

    20 Jun20 June 15:08

    I had alway heard (not sure if this is true or not) that while Virgin staff are much happier, it is actually BA staff that are better compensated.

    Someone may be able to confirm this though.

    • Shoestring says:

      20 Jun20 June 15:15

      You have to differentiate between the old contract BA cabin crew and the new contract (mixed fleet) staff.

      The old contract team are very generously compensated and have great final salary pensions – they are understandably often reluctant to leave their jobs – many are in their 50s (nothing wrong with that) – without being sexist, the guys are often very jolly, slim, happy to serve and love their jobs, whereas the women…

      The mixed fleet cabin crew are generally much younger (25-40?), often pretty good humoured and tired-looking – they are paid pretty badly in comparison and have defined contribution salary schemes.

      A tale of 2 contracts.

    • Rob says:

      20 Jun20 June 16:18

      Different job at Virgin though, because it is 100% long haul. The BA staff on the new contracts work a mix of long haul and short haul.

  • Bob brown says:

    21 Jun21 June 08:21

    Unfortunately vs staff are not better and they actually get paid worse. Flight allowances have been scrapped. However they have an image to try keep up. That’s why British airways staff have been voted number 1 at the sky track awards

• DBD says:

  20 Jun20 June 12:36

  I’ve been lucky enough to never have been caught up in a travel strike before.

  I have a couple of European trips in August, hotel and flights booked as one. Presumably BA will just repay in full if they are unable to provide service, or do I have to dance through more hoops?

  • DBD says:

    20 Jun20 June 12:38

    Oh, forgot to add trips paid on BA Amex.

  • Rob says:

    20 Jun20 June 13:45

    If you have a BA Holidays package then you’re fine, the regulations are a lot tougher. You can be fairly certain you will get where you are going.

• Anthony L says:

  20 Jun20 June 13:26

  Anyone having problems with Ba? They have cancelled to flights to Salzburg in Nov/Dec.They have then cancelled the rebooked flights within 10 minutes of speaking to call centre.

  • roberto says:

    20 Jun20 June 15:30

    Its change day.. New schedules effected just 3 sectors Aug to Jan for me. No harm , no fail thus far.

• Frankie says:

  20 Jun20 June 15:32

  If I have booked a BA CW flight using avios and an amex 2 for 1 voucher and the flight (to Phoenix) is on a strike day and cancelled, can I ask BA to re-route me using American Airlines (with or without a connection) even though my booking was a redemption? Does using avios put be at a disadvantage compared to folk who have paid cash?

  • Anna says:

    20 Jun20 June 15:55

    You have the same rights as if it was an all cash booking. BA like to stick with their own metal – I think you might struggle if they were offering you a reasonable BA alternative, say on the same day or the next day. If it was going to be a few days, as might happen with our GCM flights which only go 4 times per week, you might be on better ground to ask for re-routing with another airline.

    • Anna says:

      20 Jun20 June 15:58

      All this pre-supposes that in the event of flights being cancelled, people will actually be able to speak to BA to discuss their options! I imagine their phone lines will be very, very busy.

      • Russ says:

        20 Jun20 June 17:15

        Agree Anna, and just to add to the thrill of being stranded, customer services will then inform you you will have to wait even longer because your replacement aircraft is in the wrong position.

        Incidentally do you know what the happens regarding Executive lounge access in these cases? Do we still have access or do they have a separate procedure?

        • Anna says:

          20 Jun20 June 18:54

          I would guess that if you have the right ticket or status they would let you in, though I don’t know what happens when they are full to capacity!

    • Nick says:

      20 Jun20 June 19:11

      BA don’t stick with their own metal where the journey is within the scope of their joint businesses – in these cases they treat member airlines as their own. This means that between the UK and the US (also Canada and Mexico) you can rebook onto AA (or IB) easily at any touchpoint and with no hassle or pushback. The Caribbean is outside this arrangement, so understandably they prefer their own flights rather than pay a competitor.

      • Anna says:

        20 Jun20 June 21:29

        Why would the Caribbean be outside of this agreement, AA and Iberia fly to plenty of Caribbean islands? I asked for re-routing on AA via MIA or NYC and BA flatly refused so we ended up losing 2 days of our holiday as it was too near to our travel date to mount a challenge.

        • Nick says:

          20 Jun20 June 23:14

          The revenue share agreement BA has with AA covers the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. It does not cover the Caribbean. This means that they have to pay commercial (oneworld) interline rates to reroute you on AA to the Caribbean. Routes covered by their deal are considered as one airline and revenues are aggregated and divided out – for all intents and purposes they consider themselves one company. I can’t make it any clearer than that – google ‘Atlantic joint business’ to find the competition submissions if you need more.

        • Lady London says:

          21 Jun21 June 00:00

          IIRC there might also be a tail end of a historical thing where flights to the Caribbean from th UK were kept artificially high in price and no UK travel agent was allowed to ticket you to the Caribbean via thé USA. Some intrepid souls did buy a ticket to NY/East Coast with the intention of buying a (very very cheap) ticket to the Caribbean from there but we were not supposed to know about that. Hence no way would Caribbean be linked with Transatlantic in joint sales agreement even now with out a spécial effort.

          I believe @RussellH is an ex travel agent who might juste about recall these ‘no flying to thé Caribbean via the US from the UK’ restrictions.

• Ian says:

  20 Jun20 June 18:32

  Why would you hope that BA doesn’t bring in managerial staff? BA has hundreds of pilots who have managerial roles and who would be unlikely to support strike action.

  • ChrisC says:

    20 Jun20 June 19:12

    Have they all maintained their certifications to be able to fly?

    Just because you were a pilot once does not mean you can fly a plane now.

    Ditto for cabin crew if you haven’t passed your SEP in the last year then you aren’t able to fly.

    • Ian says:

      20 Jun20 June 21:30

      There are hundreds of BA pilots in management roles who fly regularly.

      • Bob says:

        20 Jun20 June 22:34

        There actually aren’t hundreds…a dozen perhaps. Flight Ops has just finished a reorganisation and the numbers are rather small now.

  • Rob says:

    20 Jun20 June 20:34

    That’s not what I said. What I said was that I hope they don’t take an accountant out of Waterside and tell him he has to fly to Germany tomorrow instead.

    • Ian says:

      20 Jun20 June 21:31

      Actually, you didn’t.

• Charlieface says:

  20 Jun20 June 19:31

  @rui n. End of the day it boils down to the airline’s poor staff management and they can negotiate their way out. If it was strikes by airport staff or ATC that would be different. The CAA already stated this a few times.
  @chrisc you’re quite right, the airline will offer either, but often the airline refuses and small claims is necessary, in which case an actual value needs to be put against the points. Trip Rep on this site did that and BA paid up.

  • Lady London says:

    21 Jun21 June 00:04

    They gagged him, though, sadly:-)
    And Shoestring when he got them for compensation on the removal if free catering on shorthaul….

    So we will never hear how much….

    • Shoestring says:

      21 Jun21 June 06:51

      They didn’t gag me! I got about £300 in points.

      • Lady London says:

        21 Jun21 June 20:08

        🙂

  • Rui N. says:

    21 Jun21 June 10:26

    True, but irrelevant for compensation. Preamble of EC 261/04 states that strikes are an extraordinary cirscumstance, thus no compensation is due. CJEU last year (?) said that wild strikes were not an extraordinary cirscumstance and compensation is due on those cases. Since then, UK CAA says that all strikes are due compensation, but without taking the issue to court and see if the courts agree, I don’t know what much else they can do besides saying that the airlines should pay (which has zero legal value, so they won’t pay).

• pablo says:

  20 Jun20 June 20:18

  Qatar business sale from Sofia to Southeast Asia. BKK/HKT from £1252 return, SIN £1147, PEK £1176

• RN says:

  21 Jun21 June 00:30

  Somewhat off topic – I’m just at SFO, having been told my flight is now delayed by 8 hours – not leaving until midnight and now missing a whole series of meetings scheduled for tomorrow. What’s the best way to seek compensation (and in what form does this typically take – acknowledging that the company has paid for the ticket?) Not sure if relevant (more to inform possible comp) flying on a Class A ticket.
  Thanks all!!

  • No so lucky techie says:

    21 Jun21 June 01:22

    Flying First Class
    Missing work through no fault of your own
    What’s to worry about? 🙂
    Nice tasty compo forthcoming as well.
    Go kick back and enjoy some champagne.

    • Lady London says:

      21 Jun21 June 20:19

      Departing from EU its any airline at all.

      Returning to EU operating airline must be an EU airline for EU261 to kick un. So OK if AA Flight number if BA operates IT.

  • Shoestring says:

    21 Jun21 June 08:55

    scratch that – if it’s a non-EU airline flying to the EU, you are NOT due compo under EC261 but you may be due compo under the airline’s delay & compo framework. If it’s an EU airline flying to the EU, my answer above pertains.

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