It seems to be symptomatic of public life today that controversial measures taken by governments, institutions etc quickly get leaked, presumably by people in the organisation who are unsympathetic to them. Two streams seem to be leaking from British Airways over the vindictive changes to Staff Travel Word which impinge on pensioners specifically and so hard.
One is that Willie Walsh, the CEO, is personally directing the changes to Staff Travel, though quite why he should personally feel so antagonistic to pensioners is hard to fathom.
It is true that pensioners have not acquiesced as BA management would have wished - through ABAP they opposed the merger of the NAPS and APS - but finessing that into a personal vendetta against we wrinklies requires a leap of logic even a soap opera scriptwriter would find difficult to maintain.
The second leak is that as raison d’être for the changes (and contrary to the answer given in the Retiree FAQs), British Airways claims that Staff Travel is a cost item and penalising the some of the pensioners will go a long way to reducing those costs.
This is patently stupid and demeans the people proposing it.
Firstly, even first year accountancy students know that company finances can be shown to prove practically anything, but this proposition is so fatuous we can even accept the fanciful statement as true for a moment.
What British Airways contends is that to reduce the cost of Staff Travel the company will :-
1 extend the definition of "Travel partner" so that everyone, married or single, can change their nominee every six months;
2 reduce the qualification period for 100% firm travel from 20 years to 5 years;
3 convert a number of 100% subload entitlements to 100% firm tickets each year;
4 double the number of 100% firm tickets to which some people are entitled each year;
5 extend Staff Travel eligibility to people who are not pensioners but who served 10 years or more.
British Airways claims that none of these changes will increase the demand for staff travel. As they say in street parlance today - oh yeah.
That is the nub; British Airways seriously wants everyone to believe that by imposing arbitrary and vindictive limits on the staff Travel eligibility for some elderly former staff it will reduce the costs of Staff Travel. What tosh.
Since logic and commonsense seems to be a commodity in short supply at Waterside allow me to offer this suggestion that really will help British Airways reduce the costs of Staff Travel. Readers could probably suggest more.
Limit the number of 90% subloads any one staff member or pensioner or former staff member or interline traveller can take on BA every year. Since the company claims to have such an accurate handle on financial details, it can choose the permitted number to suit its need for cost reduction but would a reasonable person not feel that six trips a year might be enough holidays for anyone?
The result would be an immediate reduction in the costs BA claims it incurs.
It would also, incidentally, impact immediately on the apparently large number of London-based Virgin Atlantic cabin crew who live in the North of England and use the London-Manchester route as their transport to work - or does British Airways feel that current Virgin staff on subload are a cost burden that can be borne but its own pensioners are not?
What is really puzzling is, if cost reduction was its genuine intention instead of bigoted nonsense why didn’t British Airways choose to make the effect of the changes fair and equal on everybody? Why antagonise one group specifically? This is a change that won’t even affect all pensioners, just some. Why? It’s daft. Every tenet of the skill and art of negotiation argues for making changes apply equally - that way no group is formed which can provide a focus for opposition. When the general rate of income tax is increased we all feel aggrieved but after the press furore has calmed we get on with it. However, a change which favours the rich or penalises the poor immediately gathers its own vociferous agitators who have the propensity and dedication to prolong their opposition out of all comparison.
The illogicality of British Airways taking this action is so startling it seems bound to provoke possible answers to the first question that would otherwise be unthinkable.
Why is Willie Walsh so determined to penalise one specific group of pensioners?
Since comments to this blog can be made anonymously, perhaps one his fellow Board members could explain his reasons.
Sunday 20 January 2008
Monday 7 January 2008
Nu-Staff Travel as described in Touchdown Part 2 - more Big Questions
To judge by the amount of space devoted to pictures and specially commissioned cartoons it appears to be the policy of BA to treat retired staff as if they are either uneducated or are suffering the first stages of senility. For example, (and only an example to demonstrate the overall attitude towards pensioners) the second Touchdown release on the subject of Nu-Staff Travel dated December 2007 devotes the entire back page of four to "Answers to the big questions on new travel policy".
So Big are the Questions that of the 116 column centimetres available on the page only 42 are devoted to the answers to them. The remainder are allocated as follows:
11 column centimetres to the title,
15 column centimetres to photos of David Lebrecht, Clare Hatchwell and Alison MacLeod looking pleased with themselves,
16 column centimetres to a humourless cartoon showing retired staff welcoming the changes, and
32 column centimetres to a photograph of an unidentified port with ferries and quayside restaurants.
That’s a total of 74 column centimetres (almost two-thirds of the entire space) not devoted to answering the Big Questions.
Questions not deemed big enough to replace the cartoon or photographs include:
Is the £10 per ticket service charge refundable when tickets expire or are otherwise unused for example those tickets that staff have to hold for alternative routings in case their preferred flight is full or if the other airline doesn’t accept ZED fares?
Why is the Service Charge to be per ticket? That unfairly penalises pensioners living outside London who have to fly to Heathrow for a connection and who often require more than four flight coupons thus more than one ticket. Why not make it a per booking or per person charge?
Will captains still be able to insist their rest seats are allocated to their friends and family ahead of other staff, even senior staff?
What is British Airways doing about getting its new descriptions of eligible travelling companions accepted by other airlines? Do any of the trio have any suggestions how a multi-carrier journey might be undertaken when different carriers have different interpretations? For example, my son lives in Seoul. Under the new Staff Travel scheme I can take my daughter aged 32 LHR-HKG rather than my wife as my travelling companion. Will Cathay Pacific accept her HKG-ICN?
If a travelling companion other than a spouse has been nominated before a pensioner dies, will any residual Nu-Staff Travel rights be automatically transferred to the spouse when he/she starts to draw their widow’s/widower’s pension or must that wish be written into the pensioner’s Will?
Why is it necessary to withdraw banked Long Service awards? Precisely how many are involved and what cost is saved by requiring pensioners to use within the next 12 months concessions they have been saving perhaps for an important family anniversary or occasion in the future? Another attack on prudence perhaps?
No doubt others have other questions that aren’t big enough to qualify for answering in public by BA - and remember Staff Travel Manager doesn’t even have a published address to which you can address questions which she might care to answer.
Perhaps she or any of her colleagues would care to answer here? Pensioners wishing to pose other Big Questions can leave them as Comments or post themselves - please send a note to the blog owner.
So Big are the Questions that of the 116 column centimetres available on the page only 42 are devoted to the answers to them. The remainder are allocated as follows:
11 column centimetres to the title,
15 column centimetres to photos of David Lebrecht, Clare Hatchwell and Alison MacLeod looking pleased with themselves,
16 column centimetres to a humourless cartoon showing retired staff welcoming the changes, and
32 column centimetres to a photograph of an unidentified port with ferries and quayside restaurants.
That’s a total of 74 column centimetres (almost two-thirds of the entire space) not devoted to answering the Big Questions.
Questions not deemed big enough to replace the cartoon or photographs include:
Is the £10 per ticket service charge refundable when tickets expire or are otherwise unused for example those tickets that staff have to hold for alternative routings in case their preferred flight is full or if the other airline doesn’t accept ZED fares?
Why is the Service Charge to be per ticket? That unfairly penalises pensioners living outside London who have to fly to Heathrow for a connection and who often require more than four flight coupons thus more than one ticket. Why not make it a per booking or per person charge?
Will captains still be able to insist their rest seats are allocated to their friends and family ahead of other staff, even senior staff?
What is British Airways doing about getting its new descriptions of eligible travelling companions accepted by other airlines? Do any of the trio have any suggestions how a multi-carrier journey might be undertaken when different carriers have different interpretations? For example, my son lives in Seoul. Under the new Staff Travel scheme I can take my daughter aged 32 LHR-HKG rather than my wife as my travelling companion. Will Cathay Pacific accept her HKG-ICN?
If a travelling companion other than a spouse has been nominated before a pensioner dies, will any residual Nu-Staff Travel rights be automatically transferred to the spouse when he/she starts to draw their widow’s/widower’s pension or must that wish be written into the pensioner’s Will?
Why is it necessary to withdraw banked Long Service awards? Precisely how many are involved and what cost is saved by requiring pensioners to use within the next 12 months concessions they have been saving perhaps for an important family anniversary or occasion in the future? Another attack on prudence perhaps?
No doubt others have other questions that aren’t big enough to qualify for answering in public by BA - and remember Staff Travel Manager doesn’t even have a published address to which you can address questions which she might care to answer.
Perhaps she or any of her colleagues would care to answer here? Pensioners wishing to pose other Big Questions can leave them as Comments or post themselves - please send a note to the blog owner.
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