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British Airways - STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE


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Cabin crew union members have voted with 80% wanting to strike between 24th December to Jan 2. Right smack bang in the holiday period.

 

If the strike goes ahead, as many as 1 million holdaying Brits will be affected. It is TOO late to re-book as everything is full.

 

If I was a BA customer, I'd be making some promises never to use them again. But I made that promise already years and years ago.

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Easy to say, but when there's a different of 50,000 yen for exactly the same route, it's difficult to decide to pay the extra. There really isn't much difference from what I can tell between BA, JAL, Korean Air or whatever.

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Are many people 'loyal' to an airline?

 

I know I'm not. I might not fly Aeroflop, but I'd consider all of them for a route I wanted and price is important. I've never noticed a big difference in any economy class flight really. I don't particularly like any of them.

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Our Euro trip last year saw us fly Qantas -->Air France--->BA and then Lufthansa--->Qantas to get home.

 

Of all of them I liked the BA flight the least (and the baggage handling between Air France and BA was atrocious!!)... discourteous, uncomfortable seats and blah food service.

 

Close to them was Air France..the hostesses were a bit nicer, as was the food service, but the seats were not great, and I hated that they sprayed you down with some chemical upon arrival.

 

Lufthansa was lovely, and Qantas was very good (however I have had some shocker Qantas flights - one of them being a Tokyo-Perth trip).

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I've experienced 'good' and 'bad' in BA, Korean Air, Air France.... it basically depends on where you are sitting, whos near you etc. Food I never really like. Baggage handling, not noticed anything either good or bad with any of them.

 

Having said that BA are a big joke.

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Quote:
Are many people 'loyal' to an airline?


Well if you're a repeat offender, then perhaps that can be counted as loyalty.

It has its benefits. Reaching a certain status on a membership program does get you upgraded when the flight is full. The "upgrade priority" goes from top status down. So.... business class gold members for example may find themselves upgraded to first class leaving the business class seat for a gold member in economy to be upgraded...etc. This has happened to my trips many times.

Plus, the mileage accumulation leads to free flights. I've had many free biz class flights to Sapporo. Just spend the points.
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there's a surprise!! I swore off BA a few years ago after being asked to fill out a customer satisfaction questionnaire then getting grilled by the Head Steward about my answers as the plane taxied to the terminal. However I then CHANGED my view when the nice people at that fabulous airline upgraded me to business class for free last Christmas..... go on lads, STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE!!! wink

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Originally Posted By: RobBright
I hope the people involved in this lose their jobs - what a stupid time of year to try and gain the "public sympathy vote".


It's hardly to get public sympathy. It's to put the most pressure on management for what may well be very legitimate claims. Should possibly also look at sacking the management for not finding a way to amicably resolve the issues that were brought before them forcing the poor workers to resort to such actions.
Just pointing out there's always two sides to every story. So many people always blame the workers for any sort of industrial action. Management can also be just as much to blame.
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Come one - they are knew the situation BA was in, and facing, back in late summer, and they decided to do the strike action now, one of the busiest times of year, and they are trying to force either the management's hand into relenting, or if this fails, a buy-out from the government, who have previously stated "they refuse to let BA go under".

 

Have read both sides if the story, and also at recent financial data, that all leads itself to the fact that BA is f**ked. They have got a pension scheme that they can't support, running close to £4bn, and first half losses of almost £400m this year, normally seen as the busiest time of year.

 

What unite said was unfair is how they have cut from 15 to 14 air crew on long haul flights (didn't realise there were so many really on e one flight. Still doesn't explain why they take so long to serve drinks.). Their pay was also frozen for two years. And what they, UNITE, fail to tell you is that they have had since June to sort out these issues. A lot of the ground crew agreed to cuts, yet cabin staff didn't.

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I'm following this 'cos the outcome could be catestrophic. IT is at the moment leading to defections to Virgin and the like. Well, go ahead punk, make my day.

 

The latest about taking it to court will do nothing. If it was deemed an illegal ballot, (unlikely, as there was 80% turnout and only 1000 were on voluntary redundancy notice) then the cabin crew would just call in sick en mass. It's happened before.

 

Good luck holidaymakers. You know, England aint such a bad place to spend Christmas.

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My mother is due to fly over her on the 28th, so if BA do strike and cancel flights they will be getting some major complaints from both ends that is for sure!

 

What a cheak to wait until the busiest time of the year to have a strike!

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Sack the lot of them. grandpa Hasn't the UK got an unemployment problem.

 

Any waiter could be converted to a hosty with a few hours training. Show them how to blow up a life jacket and then serve the food.

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Originally Posted By: big-will
snowdude - BA are numb to complaints. Sorry. sadface

Got my vote ^ that!
We didn't even get treated with courtesy when we arrived in London - a family of 6 and not a single bag came of the carousel. In fact - not a single bag arrived for more than 2 days! I would have expected at the very least a sympathetic ear and an apology. nup...treated like we were a nuisance.
I actually check to make sure none of our 'codeshare' flights are EVER code share with BA.

[got my travel insurance today wink )
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some very good news for you BA customers

 

Quote:
British Airways cabin crew strike ballot 2009

 

Unite, the trade union that represents British Airways’ (BA's) cabin crew, announced on 14 December 2009 that its strike ballot closed with a vote in

favour of industrial action between 22 December 2009 and 2 January 2010.

 

British Airways reassure their customers that all of their flights are continuing to operate as normal at this time. They are currently reworking their flight schedules for the strike period and aim to announce customers as quickly as possible.

British Airways intend to inform affected customers directly if they have customer’s e-mail address or by SMS text if they have customer’s mobile phone number. They will use the contact details supplied at the time of booking, so they ask customers to please ensure these are correct and up-to-date:

Update your contact details through Manage My Booking

 

Customers who are booked to travel between 22 December 2009 and 2 January 2010 and for 48 hours on either side of those dates who would like to take their flight at a different time can change to another BA flight departing in the next twelve months at no charge.

If a customer’s flight is actually cancelled because of industrial action, British Airways will offer them the option to refund their ticket, rebook on to a different flight or reroute their journey on another British Airways flight or other carriers (subject to availability and agreement). For further information, please refer to British Airways ’s website.

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