British Airways proposes to make 239 of 546 staff at its Cardiff maintenance facility redundant

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• IndiaCharlie says:

  22 May22 May 11:11

  Wow WW is making friends left right and centre. I understand that these are extraordinary times and they do call for extraordinary measures. There will inevitably be redundancies and I have no idea how an airline runs or can manage to get through this crisis… But…. I do know that disinsentivised, uninspired and under rewarded staff do nothing for the long term health of a business. The board may have a responsibility to the share holders but that responsibility extends to the long term health of the business not just the next couple of years. One thing about aviation that you just cannot buy is experience and loyalty, they are earned. Once they lose their most experienced (higher paid) staff, it’s difficult to recover.

• BrightonReader says:

  22 May22 May 11:25

  How much is Alex’s salary and benefits being cut by

  How inferior will his new contract be?

  • Optimus Prime says:

    22 May22 May 16:08

    How dare you make such comment? Don’t you know that AC and WW are the one stirring the ship? The monkeys on the floor are worthless.

• MattB says:

  22 May22 May 11:26

  “In practice, it is likely that every member of staff will be made redundant but 239 will be allowed to sign new contracts. ”

  Sorry to be picky but shouldn’t it be 546 less 239 who will have to sign new contracts?

  • Andrew says:

    22 May22 May 11:29

    And I think ‘make redundant’ rather than ‘fire’ would be a more appropriate and less tabloid headline for this article

    • Rob says:

      22 May22 May 11:43

      ‘redundancies’ is a REALLY long word when you have to fit your headline into a fixed number of characters.

      • BrightonReader says:

        22 May22 May 14:57

        BA proposes 239 redundancies at Cardiff Maintenance Base

        would be within your word limit

    • Charlieface says:

      22 May22 May 14:00

      Redundant is just biz-speak, everyone else says fired

      • Sunguy says:

        22 May22 May 14:20

        Work for an American company and you are RIF`d…..(Reduction in Force).

      • BrightonReader says:

        22 May22 May 14:55

        No it’s not just ‘biz’ speak.

        In the UK it has a specific legal meaning.

        Beingmade redundant is defiitly not the same as being fired or sacked.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        22 May22 May 17:22

        Or “retrenched” in Australia, which I actually had to Google, as I’d never heard the term and it sounded like something from one of the World Wars, but seems is fairly common.

  • Fred says:

    22 May22 May 11:39

    Not picky at all, just misleading from Rob. Maybe he’s distracted with home-schooling duties! 😉

    • Rob says:

      22 May22 May 11:42

      You haven’t read the letter. One option is that EVERYONE is laid off but the 307 ‘chosen ones’ are given new contracts and offered their job back if they sign.

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:

        22 May22 May 11:47

        Then they are not firing 239. They are firing 546.

        Redundancy may be along word, but the right word should take precedent over length.

        • Lady London says:

          22 May22 May 23:48

          i dont get why it’s legal for companies to do this. if they need to fire 100 people and they still need 200 people to do the job then why doesnt the law say, per round, you may only send condultation notices to a maximum of 10 % more than the number of jobs you actually need to eliminate.

  • Rob says:

    22 May22 May 11:42

    No. Read the letter. Fire everyone, rehire 307, is an option.

    • Fred says:

      22 May22 May 11:53

      So BA are proposing to make 307 redundant then?

      You’re confusing this ‘news’ by the hour Rob!

    • Simon Phillips says:

      22 May22 May 11:59

      I think a possible issue is that the article says both fire / make redundant 239 and then also offer 239 a new contract.
      I get that the offer effectively is sack all and rehire however it’s not clear above if:
      The number to be rehired is 239 (“239 will be allowed to return if they sign a new contract”) and therefore 307 (546-239) are effectively sacked; or
      The number to be rehired is 307 (again 546-239) and therefore 239 are effectively sacked (“ British Airways is proposing to make 239 of the 546 staff redundant.”).

      Hope that makes sense and I acknowledge that it doesn’t make a massive difference to the bigger picture story at BA right now.

    • Mike P says:

      22 May22 May 12:22

      I’ve read the letter. I think the confusion is that BA is proposing to make 239 jobs redundant. They are also threatening to make all 546 positions redundant and then re-hire, on lesser terms, 307 people.

      • Fred says:

        22 May22 May 12:26

        But Rob writes above;

        ‘Read the letter. Fire everyone, rehire 239’

        While the potential news is sad for those affected, this article is hilarious!

        • Mike P says:

          22 May22 May 12:29

          It’s simply a typo, had the original article read ‘it is likely that every member of staff will be made redundant but 307 will be allowed to return’ it would be entirely correct.

        • Rob says:

          22 May22 May 12:46

          Yes, 307, sorry.

      • Alex W says:

        22 May22 May 13:01

        It clearly says headcount reduction of 239. If they have to terminate all 546, it does not say how many they would offer a new contract.

• Anon says:

  22 May22 May 12:27

  Is the only difference between redundancy and firing in the UK notice period and statutory pay? What is the test to prove that a role is redundant, that the company can no longer afford to keep those roles active?

  If you make the entire team of 546 redundant but then bring x back on reduced terms then x of those roles by definition could not have been truly redundant?

  • Paul Pogba says:

    22 May22 May 12:48

    Those roles fixing widgets are redundant but these new lower paid jobs fixing widgets AND maintaining the phalangy are hiring. You have a mortgage and credit card payments, would you be interested?

  • AJA says:

    22 May22 May 13:07

    You make a role redundant while you fire/sack an individual. The key point about redundancy is that you cannot then employ someone else in a role you’ve made redundant. Therefore BA is proposing to reduce the number of roles at its facility and make those roles redundant.

    • Paul Pogba says:

      22 May22 May 15:07

      Employers will tweak/change the role and try their luck in a tribunal. As an employee you have the choice of going, accepting the awful terms, or winning at employment tribunal and walking around the office like a fart for the rest of time.

• Simon CH says:

  22 May22 May 12:34

  Some strange interpretations above.
  Fire them all, then no redundancies offered?
  Either way, we KNOW the travel industry will have to change and adapt to the new market.
  If people are not travelling, why should they employ a full amount of staff??
  This is a business, NOT a state owned company.

  I know many will be horrified, but the only way they can afford to maintain staff levels is if (a) the same amount of passenger numbers returns VERY soon, or (b) ticket prices quadruple at least, to cover the costs.
  But we all want travel cheaper, easier and Immediately.

  So, mr Walsh maybe not on many Christmas card lists, but he is trying to change and maximise profits and stability etc to a new era of travel. And that is what EVERY single airline will be doing.

  • Rob says:

    22 May22 May 12:42

    It’s aircraft maintenance. The aircraft aren’t going anywhere (in the main). They need maintaining whether they fly or not.

    Why would anyone accept voluntary redundancy when all you getting is the legal minimum, which is peanuts? It’s not like a voluntary redundancy round where you’d be offered a substantial sum (1-2 years salary) to go. Last time my wife got a VR offer, which she refused, it was well into six figures. It will end up as the letter say – everyone is fired and 239 are offered the chance to come back.

    • Alex W says:

      22 May22 May 13:49

      True, they will at least need to complete calendar-based maintenance, anti-deterioration maintenance and any technical directives that come from the type certificate holder (Boeing/Airbus etc). Probably a requirement of the lease that this has to be kept up to date.

      Some maintenance will be required on a per Flying Hour basis which is obviously reduced or not required at the moment.

    • Lesley Palmer says:

      22 May22 May 14:30

      People may accept voluntary redundancy of only the statutory minimum if they are given eg pay in lieu of notice and can leave immediately with perhaps 3/6 months pay. Additionally although the letter skates over it some contracts may well have a better redundancy provision – anyone made redundant with the entitlement to a better provision in their contract will receive that higher amount.

    • John says:

      22 May22 May 20:55

      Rob, given you get to doctor your own misleading posts, I suggest you correct them all

      * 307

    • Lady London says:

      22 May22 May 23:51

      BA is cleaning up.

• Alex W says:

  22 May22 May 12:55

  Closing the facility would seem very short sighted. Once it’s gone it’s not the sort of thing that can be switched back on again in an instant. These skills take years to learn.
  If there are a lot of closures around the world then the cost of maintenance could shoot up when demand returns.
  BA could use this down time to train the staff on new aircraft types, hire more apprentices etc.

  • J says:

    22 May22 May 13:09

    Lol you’re assuming BA is well managed and capable of thinking about the long term. How much has cutting corners and outsourcing IT actually ended up costing them?!

• Chrish says:

  22 May22 May 13:12

  So i’ts easy to read into this that BA is hiring Staff
  Good on WW the first Airline to start hiring lol

• Peter K says:

  22 May22 May 13:48

  This could end badly for BA. A company in my line of work (admittedly not in a recession) fired all in a certain role and made them apply for it again but with less positions and at a lower wage. Only problem was, too many said stuff you and found work elsewhere and they had a shortfall.

  They ended up having to get in free lancers for years to fulfill the needed work. It benefitted me as I was higher trained and working free lance so got paid my much higher wage for a much easier role. The company involved ended up being bought out less than 5 years later despite having been around for a VERY long time.

  BA may really regret this decision.

  • insider says:

    22 May22 May 17:41

    But how many other aircraft maintenance roles are there in Cardiff outside of BA?

    • Peter K says:

      22 May22 May 18:45

      Possibly none, but people can relocate for their job. A Boeing aircraft is the same across the world.

    • Spaghetti Town says:

      23 May23 May 00:38

      There’s one other company down the road at St Athan airfield. That’s pretty much it…

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.