Personnel Today reports that British Airways' (BA) new human resources director, Tony McCarthy, has been warned that he will face "long-term problems" if he cannot find a solution to the dispute over the airline's plans for a subsidiary, Open Skies, in mainland Europe.
The British Air Line Pilots Association (Balpa) are to ballot of its members this week, on whether to hold strikes over the plan.
The pilots do not like the BA proposal to have a separate pool of pilots for Open Skies.
A Balpa spokesman told Personnel Today:
"We very much hope we can get an agreement on this, but if we cannot then it is going to be a long-term problem for the company - in particular for its HR team."
The informal conversations that I held with various members of staff, on the long haul flights I took between London/Beijing this year (eg see letter sent to Willie Walsh), indicate that there is a very high degree of dissatisfaction amongst the staff with BA.
There are storm clouds ahead.
It will be in the interests of everyone (staff, customers and BA) that BA find a way to fly around them.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
Michael Winner Loses His Card
Martin Waller of The Times reports today that Michael Winner and BA have fallen out with each other in a big way.
BA seemingly will not be renewing Mr Winner's gold card, when it expires in 2009, as a result of some rather acerbic comments he made about them in the Times recently.
Even this site would not use the phrase "toilet fodder".
I have always been of the view that Virgin is superior to BA wrt service and amenities, if only they flew to all the destinations that BA does!
BA seemingly will not be renewing Mr Winner's gold card, when it expires in 2009, as a result of some rather acerbic comments he made about them in the Times recently.
Even this site would not use the phrase "toilet fodder".
I have always been of the view that Virgin is superior to BA wrt service and amenities, if only they flew to all the destinations that BA does!
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Strike Vote
British Airways pilots are to be balloted on possible strike action, in a dispute over the airline's plans to launch a new transatlantic subsidiary.
Read the full story on the BBC.
Read the full story on the BBC.
Friday, 18 January 2008
Congratulations
Well deserved congratulations to the crew of Thursday's BA038 from Beijing, who managed to crash land the plane safely without any major injury to the passengers or crew.
Any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing!
Any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing!
Monday, 7 January 2008
Customer Manipulation
Back in November 2007 I, along with thousands of other BA Executive Club members, received an email from Willie Walsh (CEO of BA) asking me to support the creation of a third runway at Heathrow.
Walsh claimed that expansion would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 330,000 tonnes a year, because aircraft would no longer have to waste fuel queueing for take-off or circling while waiting to land.
It now transpires that, according to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the claim is not quite correct. ASA has written to BA ordering it to withdraw the claim.
Walsh's e-mail implied that the claim about CO2 reduction had been endorsed by the Government. However, he did not make it clear that the new runway would raise overall CO2 emissions by 2.6 million tonnes a year by allowing an extra 220,000 flights.
ASA has asked BA to confirm by January 9 that it will not repeat the claim.
BA should not have tried to manipulate their customers in this manner in the first place.
Walsh claimed that expansion would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 330,000 tonnes a year, because aircraft would no longer have to waste fuel queueing for take-off or circling while waiting to land.
It now transpires that, according to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the claim is not quite correct. ASA has written to BA ordering it to withdraw the claim.
Walsh's e-mail implied that the claim about CO2 reduction had been endorsed by the Government. However, he did not make it clear that the new runway would raise overall CO2 emissions by 2.6 million tonnes a year by allowing an extra 220,000 flights.
ASA has asked BA to confirm by January 9 that it will not repeat the claim.
BA should not have tried to manipulate their customers in this manner in the first place.
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Strikes Off
Strikes scheduled by airport workers in January have been scrapped, bringing relief to 1.3 million travellers.
The strikes were planned for January 14 and 17, for 24 and 48 hours respectively. The strikes would have crippled Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and brought knock-on effects of delays and cancellations for the days either side of the strike as aircraft and crew were realigned.
The decision to scrap the strikes follows agreement between airport workers and BAA management in a dispute over a final salary pension scheme.
Source The Times
The strikes were planned for January 14 and 17, for 24 and 48 hours respectively. The strikes would have crippled Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and brought knock-on effects of delays and cancellations for the days either side of the strike as aircraft and crew were realigned.
The decision to scrap the strikes follows agreement between airport workers and BAA management in a dispute over a final salary pension scheme.
Source The Times
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
BAA Strike Update
UNITE (the union behind the BAA strike threat) has called off the strike planned for the 7th of January that would have shut down Britain's main airports.
Unite said that an agreement had been reached in principle over the future of the BAA pension scheme. The agreement will be discussed by union representatives on Thursday.
If the deal is not accepted by union representatives, further 48 hour strikes on January 14 and January 18 are possible.
Maybe BA, by not warning passengers about the strike threat, knew something that BAA and UNITE didn't?
Unite said that an agreement had been reached in principle over the future of the BAA pension scheme. The agreement will be discussed by union representatives on Thursday.
If the deal is not accepted by union representatives, further 48 hour strikes on January 14 and January 18 are possible.
Maybe BA, by not warning passengers about the strike threat, knew something that BAA and UNITE didn't?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)