BALPA vs British Airways – Court of Appeal verdict on the pilot strike delivered at 10.30am

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• Miles. On point says:

  30 Jul30 July 17:16

  Selfishly I’m hoping that BA win appeal as that would put us in the clear for our Honeymoon (LHR-MEX in F) outbound flight on 3rd September. Once we’re in Mexico I wouldn’t begrudge having to stay there for a few extra days.

  I guess we shall see…

• Ken says:

  30 Jul30 July 17:51

  The one pilot I know is utterly incensed by BA’s tactics and the feeling is that there needs to be at least a couple of days strike action before further arbitration just to focus managements mind.

• AJA says:

  30 Jul30 July 18:33

  “The obvious point to make is that splitting by fleet is fairly meaningless. An A380 pilot cannot fly a Boeing 747, so BA’s strike planning is not greatly helped by a having long-haul / short-haul split.”

  Except that while it may have been 90% in favour of striking there are still roughly 900 pilots who did not vote to strike or are not BALPA members 4500- (90% x 4000) = 900. It may not be simply 90% of each fleet voted to strike i.e. maybe all of the 747 pilots voted against striking balanced out by all A319 pilots voting to strike.

  If BA knows how many 747 v 777 v 787 pilots voted in favour of striking tells you how many of those planes can’t fly hence which routes are most affected. It also allows BA to work out potentially how many Qatar planes to draft in as contingency.

  • Rob says:

    30 Jul30 July 18:38

    BA is not asking for this data though. It is only asking for short-haul % vs long-haul %. That’s the point.

    • AJA says:

      30 Jul30 July 19:08

      True but how many of the 500 pilots not BALPA members (and therefore not striking) are LH v SH?. If for example the split of LH v SH pilots in favour of strike action is weighted towards SH fleet it does show which fleet they need to concentrate on outsourcing. (80%LH + 100%SH) / 2 = 90%

      In my opinion I think BA will lose the appeal so it may well be irrelevant anyway.

      I am not a fan of striking but I do support the right to do so.

    • Doug M says:

      30 Jul30 July 19:32

      It’s the legal point, but instinct says they’d have appealed on any basis to buy time, this is not contingency planning it’s delay. If LH/SH info had been provided then would they have said they needed it by type of aircraft? Perhaps what they’d really like is a list of how each BALPA member voted so they can create a list for what they’d see as future retribution.

      • BSI1979 says:

        30 Jul30 July 20:36

        This.

        • The Original David says:

          30 Jul30 July 21:22

          I mean, if they’re bothered about punishing the individuals who support the strike, they could just wait and see who doesn’t turn up for work on the strike day.

        • Doug M says:

          31 Jul31 July 01:13

          Not necessarily those that vote though. You may vote against a strike but feel membership means abiding by the majority.

        • Alex Sm says:

          31 Jul31 July 18:55

          Yes, it’s like Brexit, you may have campaigned for Remain but you have to deliver Leave if this is the verdict… The future historians would call this the “May paradox”

    • Nick says:

      31 Jul31 July 00:22

      Well strictly speaking the point is that BA wants to kick this out of the summer holidays and into Sep. They’ve seen an angle through which they think the law backs them, and have taken it. They’re not stupid, they know the majority will vote again the same way, they just want to avoid the publicity of ‘ruining family holidays’ (and it looks as if BALPA were stupid enough to let them). More fool them.

  • Dark says:

    30 Jul30 July 18:43

    How far should a union go in assisting the employers to provide ‘contingency planning’ though? And why should they have to?

    • Doug M says:

      30 Jul30 July 19:28

      Right on brother. BA have it coming. They’re simply playing with BALPA to buy a little time, when the sensible thing to do would be to spend that time trying to find common ground. It’s not like pilots strike every year, BA clearly have no real intent to resolve this, and just resort to the attempted legal bullying. They’ll make endless statements about how they’re sorry that BALPA are causing the customers so many problems, when they don’t give two monkeys about causing customers problems for their own economic reasons. Sympathy for BA zero.

• Marko says:

  30 Jul30 July 19:52

  Rob, I was told BA Cityflyer would not be affected by a possible strike. Do you think LCY flights would operate as usual or would they move pilots to other non-LCY flights (not sure if that is possible from operational / admin perspective)?

  I got LCY-PRG booked for 16th Aug and inbound Aug 18. :/

  • Andrew says:

    30 Jul30 July 20:05

    You should be fine as BA LCY is a different company that operates a different fleet and so no interoperability.

    The one exception is BA001/2 LCY-SNN-JFK which is operated by BA “mainline” crew on an A318.

• Robert Bongo says:

  31 Jul31 July 00:28

  BA management, stop wasting finance in court room costs that could otherwise be used to support and accelerate a negotiated deal…The meaningless legal action policy you adopt every time your staff wish to pursue a strike within the boundaries of the law, only makes the eventual resolve more time consuming..
  Common sense and logic is needed here, don’t upset and aggravate what is the most pro company section of your workforce.
  In the interests of the customers whom you claim to represent and your shareholders alike, be professional and sort out a deal the most amicable way possible..

• Peter Alderson says:

  31 Jul31 July 06:41

  As all the pilots are BA employees BA should not need to be told which fleet they are assigned to. Clutching at straws I think!

• TripRep says:

  31 Jul31 July 07:01

  Launch of the new A350 and the fanfare with it could easily be short lived this autumn.

  1) Pilots Strike
  2) Airport staff strikes
  2) Extinction Rebellion protests

• ChrisC says:

  31 Jul31 July 07:04

  If BALPA does not need to know if it’s BA members work short or long haul as part of administering the union then under GDPR it has no right to collect the data and even less right to pass it on to BA.

  BALPA is not an extension of the BA HR and flight planning departments. A list of names and locations of those proposing to strike on particular dates should be enough for BA to plan its operations.

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