BA possibly making up to 12,000 redundant. Here we go. Recession looming.

[BubblesBuddy]

Life has ground to a halt and BA don’t think we will be flying in the same numbers as before. This is 25% of their staff. This is serious.

Just so we can move on, and so we can try and put an end to the BA pilots earn 167K debate I'm just going to park these inks here..Good luck with unravelling them - they are all unofficial figures that may be somewhere in the ballpark....In terms of statistics, means and calculations thereof you need to be aware that there are more First Officers and Senior First Officers in BA than Captains ( due to augmented crew operations on some long haul flights), there are also a lot of junior pilots on the low pay points due to recruitment over the last 2 or 3 years.

www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1160260/british-airways-pilot-salary-how-much-ba-pilots-earn-strike

www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/British-Airways-Pilot-Salaries-E3462_D_KO16,21.htm

www.payscale.com/research/UK/Employer=British_Airways/Salary

As for the pilots’ pay dispute with BA last year - that was BA refusing to agree a profit-related element to pilots’ pay. It seems it doesn’t like to share its profits with employees in the good times, but always uses losses to justify a permanent negative change to employee terms and conditions.

Cabin crew are going to be merged onto one fleet apparently, flying long haul and short haul.

FWIW that's how "Mixed Fleet", the BA recent entry cabin crew have been rostered ever since their Fleet came into being umpteen years ago - they sometimes have a quite eye watering mix a mix of long haul and short haul duties on their rosters (and not a lot of money for doing it). I'm also pretty sure the Mixed Fleet management grades can also end being rostered days work in the Terminal or Office.

Getting the two separate "legacy" cabin crew fleets you mention onto the same rostering arrangement as Mixed Fleet has been probably top of BA cabin crew management's wish list for a long time..

For what it’s worth: when profit shares are paid staff tend to get used to them. They don’t get used to losses and no profits and redundancy. It doesn’t matter how you pay people the effect of no work is the same. No jobs.

And by the way I always fly BA. I like BA. Plenty don’t and won’t use them. I haven’t flown with a cut price airline for years and then not by choice. Someone else booked it. I want BA to come through this.

For what it’s worth, staff who are paid profit shares feel more valued by their employer than BA staff have done in recent years. BA has had poor industrial relations for a reason, and that doesn’t help in good times or bad times. Its motives are not trusted by employees due to recent past experience.

Btw, I like to fly BA, too. And Easyjet. Not so keen on other airlines, but I have never had issues with those two, personally.

It is bad news. The reality that global travel will be very different for the foreseeable. More and more countries will have tighter entry/quarantine requirements. Who is going to want to fly somewhere but be restricted to at least 14 days in isolation when they reach their destination? And again on returning home?

Staff paid by profit share are furious when there’s no profit! Believe me. It’s not always one way is good and another way is bad. Often industrial relations sour when changes need to be made. This was always going to happen with low cost airlines and state owned airlines very much in the mix. Companies have to adjust to the new market place or they go bankrupt. It’s not a continual gravy train and if a company cannot control costs in times of great stress and upheaval to air flights then it won’t be paying anyone anything! Just look at the many high street businesses that are struggling.

BubblesBuddy - with respect, you don’t know the detail of staff grievances with BA management! Management definitely has issues which it has failed adequately to address - effective, timely and honest two-way communication with staff being one of them.

And I think you insult the intelligence of pilots to imply they do not understand how profit share works.

Bubblesbuddy you don't come across as someone really qualified at all to discuss any of this wih any degree of actual accuracy.

Well maybe not but I do understand when people don’t get any money because there is no profit. They don’t like it. It’s as simple as that. I didn’t say pilots didn’t understand but when businesses are fighting for their lives profit share doesn’t happen. BA probably do have problems but it’s difficult to please everyone all of the time and be efficient. Most big companies struggle with this. Even M&S and JL are looking at redundancies. This global crisis will hit everyone. Anyway as I’m unqualified (not sure who checks this) I’m not commenting further.

bubbles Pilots took paycuts and pay freezes when the company profits struggled. They worked longer hours, had the standards of hotel conditions eroded (noise darkness etc) They have made sacrifices when the company struggled

Many of them have paid for their own training which is up to £100,000, they then start on a low salary and then within a year of starting work they are facing job losses. That's not really comparable to the retail sector

On the subject of profitshare at BA and an attempt to move this away from being pilot-centric..

This article highlights the way several American carriers rewarded their staff in recent years...

airlinegeeks.com/2020/01/31/profit-sharing-continuing-to-shape-major-u-s-airlines/

"This year’s announcement continues the streak of ‘giving back’ as the airlines — publically and proudly — reward employees for their role in a highly profitable period for airlines worldwide"

At the same time at IAG,

"Across the group, British Airways made an operating profit of €1.952 billion, with Aer Lingus making €305 million, Vueling €200 million, and Iberia €437 million"

But there an absolute "no", from the very top, to any idea of profit share for any of the employees. In fact what happened was another bi-annual fight to get RPI linked pay rise, and in parallel a fight to try and retain or at least reduce the erosion in some of the most important aspects of T&Cs in areas that effect the job every day (as Didkt correctly points out)....

www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2019/02/28/iag-reports-full-year-profits-of-e3-2-billion/

Now I know that was then and this is now..but if a company's attitude to valuing and rewarding of staff in the good times has perhaps been sub-optimal I'd suggest it would probably not be surprising to find staff are somewhat sceptical about cost cutting measures, even in a crisis.

Virgin Atlantic have announced 3,000 redundancies today. All Gatwick based.

It's interesting will that encourage BA to remain at Gatwick or to desert a sinking ship?
It's a sickening feeling though if you're connected to the airline industry

If I were BA, I would stay at Gatwick and take over the routes Virgin used to fly when things picked up again.

Potentially BA could use Virgin leaving Gatwick to negotiate better terms. Virgin are still keeping their slots as they intend to return eventually, so they won’t be BA’s to take.

Also, Virgin won’t cancel their Gatwick routes, they’ll just move those routes over to Heathrow. Orlando for example is a very lucrative route for Virgin, they won’t bin it off, they’ll just fly out of Heathrow l.

For both airlines though, this isn’t just a cost cutting exercise (although partly that) it’s also about protecting their very valuable slots at Heathrow. It’s considered that business travel will suffer and leisure will bounce back fairly well. So, all the business routes (and luxury leisure like LA and San Francisco) all fly out of Heathrow.

But rather than 6 or 8 flights a day to NYC like currently, you consolidate down to say 3 flights and then use your other slots for the leisure routes you have moved across. Therefore you aren’t flying half empty aircraft, saved money by moving out of Gatwick but you are also protecting your very valuable LHR slots by filling them with leisure routes like Orlando and Vegas that will get booked

I thought Heathrow had suspended its Heathrow slots rule, so airlines don’t have to worry about losing them while they are doing bugger all flying everywhere? Otherwise, everyone has lost their slots already, because no-one is using them 80% of the time.

And if Virgin is keeping its Gatwick slots, then why has it been publicised that it is pulling out of Gatwick altogether? Talk about false reporting...

The airlines that have not made profits and hung on to them will be fearing collapse. Lots of talk about prudent operating in the last few days. There will be airline casualties. Virgin has paid Branson and its shareholders. However they don’t have rainy day money. The airlines that do might survive. Also employers have a right to choose how employees are remunerated. Other jobs are available if employees are not happy. Or at least they were...... It might be better to be working for an airline right now that isn’t bankrupt. How’s Norwegian doing right now? They are usually at deaths door financially.

Does any other airline want Gatwick slots “vacated” by Virgin? The global turn down is so severe, who would want them right now? No airline is expanding, surely?

Less planes in the air = less climate change = good for the planet.
This is what everyone wanted surely?

Don't forget their is a climate change emergency!

At the expense of 1000s of jobs though. Easy to say if you are not one of them and you never go anywhere. Trashing the economy was not the way to get everyone on board with saving the planet.