BA's Christmas Chaos

The Story: BBC News

The Airline: BA’s position

The Union: Unite’s position

Me: Left wondering if I will get to spend Christmas with my wife or not.

I don’t see that Unite’s position is tenable. If BA fails, all their members’ jobs go anyway. They are the only part of BA that has not acknowledged the need for BA to cut costs. Their cabin members are paid (on average) nearly twice what Virgin’s cabin members are paid (source CAA via BBC article above). BA is not guaranteed to survive, they face competition on all fronts and a very aggressive market. Bloomberg paints quite a grim picture:

British Airways, Europe’s third-largest airline, lost 2.2 percent to 196.6 pence. Airline losses in 2010 will total $5.6 billion, 47 percent wider than an earlier forecast, as oil prices rise while carriers compete for passengers with lower fares, the International Air Transport Association said.

Pissing off passengers, like me, is only going to be made worse by pointless strikes like the one Unite is intending to hold. The conditions being imposed by BA certainly aren’t draconian. They aren’t perfect, but if the BA cabin staff want to keep one more person on their long haul planes, they can’t do that and keep the same pay. If they go and work for Virgin for example, their lives won’t be much easier, especially not with half the pay.

If the strikes do go ahead, I will seriously consider not flying BA ever again — currently they are my favourite airline. This will be a protest against Unite, not against Willie Walsh. Mr Walsh has my full support in his endeavours, but his dilemma is that he risks losing my business, and presumably plenty of others like me, because of Unite’s behaviour.

Update: British Airways cabin crew strike blocked