BA strike causes wide disruption
(Financial Times): Thousands of British Airways passengers faced disruption to their travel plans on Monday after 1,200 cabin crew began a five-day srike. Talks to resolve the dispute over the weekend ended in acrimony with both the company and leaders of the Unite union blaming each other for the failure to come to a deal. As of early Monday, about 40 per cent of scheduled departures and 30 per cent of arrivals at Heathrow – Europe’s busiest airport – had been cancelled, the airline said. Flights from two other London airports, Gatwick and City, were not affected by the strike. The airline said it was able to operate more than 60 per cent of the long-haul programme and 50 per cent of short-haul flights. According to the BA web site flights this week from Grand Cayman to London have been cancelled.
Category: World News
If private sector employers had treated
their employees fairly and equitably, there would never have been a
need for unions.
That said, I hate it when I miss a vacation because of a strike…
Shame you know nothing about the situation, but just choose to comment based on hearsay or some deluded sense of self importance.
BA flight staff are already by a long way the highest paid and best treated staff in the airline industry.
Because BA used to be the government carrier the unions have been able to bully them into giving unsustainable benefit increases year on year, whilst other airlines cut staff and decrease benefits for their staff. As the airline has most of the available flight slots at key airports in the UK they control most of the airspace there, meaning when their staff strike the choice of alternative flights is very small.
Obviously this wouldn’t work at most other airlines (i.e. American) because if they cancelled flights there are another 5-10 carriers that will happily take on their business. So the workers of those airlines have much less power.
The previous UK government was funded largely by different trade unions so the unions became very powerful and had an invitation to rape and pillage the customers of these firms.
It was the same for the post office there. Despite the post office staff getting paid twice what the other courier firms staff got, they still keep going on strike.
The civil service here couldn’t have the same impact because for 90% of them, we wouldn’t notice if they were on strike or not. The service would still be appallingly slow, inefficent and thoroughly unfriendly.
At last, Anon 8:28, an informed post on this matter! Thanks.
A little sensitive aren’t we?
My comment was simply about the historical development, need and eventual benefit to workers, not about this strike in particular. If you were to read about working conditions and employee treatment in the 1800’s and early 1900’s you may not be so angry about the unions.
That said, I do agree that some union power and influence has become excessive. On the other hand, when you like at some sectors, such as the mining industry, I believe that unions have a great role to play in encouraging safety regulations.
If only there was a cost efficient alternative to travel to the UK. The problem is the cost of getting off Grand Cayman to any other airport to catch a connecting flight just makes it unrealistic.
Generally you can get to the UK for the same price or cheaper via Miami (just look on expedia) but obviously you have the inconvenience of changing planes in miami and spending potentially hours queueing at immigration and more hours waiting for the next flight.
If you can’t get a US Visa you can find flights via havana and Jamaica also.
We need a longer runway more than a cruise docking pier.
We need to get Virgin Airlines flying to Cayman – cheaper and more reliable..
I am for one is sick of this. There are constantly issues and strikes with BA. I am scheduled to go on a family vacation in July, and now you have to worry whether one is actually able to go or not or if by then another strike will be looming. After paying thousands of dollars you get NOTHING. How can that be??? The customers do not have any longer any rights and do no longer get any respects. They keep this up, they are going to run the airline into the ground and nobody will have a job!
BA are to the UK what the CS is to Cayman. So big they can hold the entire country up for ransome until they get exactly what they want. And this is nothing new – BA do this each and every year – I swear they consider their annual strike time part of their annual leave entitlement!
By "BA" you are meaning "BA’s molly-coddled and better than market paid rank and file and replaceable staff". Don’t blame BA for the madness of the left wing union loonies.
Exactly Mon 23:34! Oh for another Mrs Thatcher and Norman Tebbitt to root out the loony left entirely.
The UK Government needs to make it clear that the unions have to back down completely or risk a year of further broader union unrest. Unite pays 40% of the Labour party’s bills, no wonder the last Government were ineffective in standing up to them.