Evidently the information that ABAP had that the Liaison Council was meeting with British Airways last week was incorrect. Mrs Mapp, Chairman of the Liaison Council, has responded with the following less than rivetting news.
"The British Airways Retired Staff Liaison Council will continue to fulfil its constitutional role of representing the interests of the members of the British Airways retired community in all matters affecting them.
We were, during the confidential talks with BA which stretched over 3 years, fully aware of the grief the proposed new policy would cause to many retirees, and I can assure you that we worked extremely hard to get improved conditions but eventually BA put an end to the talks and decided to impose their plans with only small adjustments.
We wrote to Willie Walsh again in January making a plea for certain positive changes to the policy, but we have not received a reply to date. Should the response be negative, it won't have been for want of trying!"
Readers will make up their own minds about how hard the Liaison Council has worked and how effective the "plea" they made in January might be.
No doubt many will be underwhelmed by the fatuous claim that "the Liaison Council represents pensioners in all matters affecting them" since it conspicuously failed to do anything about the attack on our pensions by British Airways in the past and they were more recent willing to "consult" on our behalf under the duress of a Confidentiality Agreement. The Liaison Council still hasn't explained what was confidential other than its cosy little relationship with the company. The fact is that had it really had our interests in mind and refused to be gagged we would have had up to three more years notice of this travesty. Even now, Mrs Mapp would like to only communicate with us through the Chair of ABAP - so much for their accessibility to the people they claim to represent.
The Committee of ABAP (which genuinely represents Pensioners’ interests) is co-ordinating its response though clearly it will not involve the Liaison Council. Certain members of the Committee have been out of the country until very recently but all are expected to be present at the next scheduled Committee meeting today. Following that meeting an announcement will be made and communicated to you via the blog and/or the ABAP website. Almost certainly that will involve a mass appeal to our individual Members of Parliament. Their current addresses / e-mail addresses can be checked at:
http://www.parliament.uk/
The Committee of ABAP has made it clear that we cannot expect any financial help from existing funds. Whist initially that has a rather dog-in-the-manger feel, it has the advantage that we can ask everybody, ABAP members as well as non-members, to support the Staff Travel 2009 Fighting Fund.
It also means that since this fight will either be won or lost in the next few months, subscribers can insist that their donations are only used for that purpose and that if anything remains in the Staff Travel 2009 Fighting Fund after the campaign has been fought shall be refunded to the subscribers pro rata. I hope it also means people will be able to respond knowing that their funds will only be used for the specific purpose. Obviously the more generously you are able to support the fund the more effective it can be.
Incidentally no funds will come to this blog or the writer and will be dealt with solely by the ABAP Treasurer and in accordance with the rules covering such organisations.
Expect to read news from ABAP on the ABAP website at:
http://www.abap.org.uk/
in the next few days.
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It saddens me that the people likely to be most affected by the imposition of limits on pensioners' staff travel are those who served the companies through times when they relied on loyalty and personal commitment. The following, written by Harry Leidtke, a former BOAC employee in Canada, is included here with his permission. It was written as a personal memorial about a Canadian pensioner who recently died. Had she lived Isobel would have been amongst the group of elderly pensioners who whose remaining lives will be changed completely by these vindictive changes.
Unless reason and decency prevail amongst those heading up BA today, Isobel's story will be only one of many.
I cannot believe that destroying the modest lifestyles of a few hundred elderly pensioners will make even a blip of difference to BA's balance sheet.
"IN MEMORY OF ISOBEL STIRLING
This Christmas past, Isobel Stirling flew back to Scotland for a happy family reunion. Right after the holidays, a lingering illness forced her to enter hospital. She did not cling to life and a few days later she passed away. Fate had decreed that Isobel should be laid to rest in the country of her ancestors.
Posterity should know that Isobel Stirling was hugely instrumental in opening up transatlantic air travel to the general public. When she joined British Overseas Airways Corporation BOAC in the 1950’s, air transport was just beginning to hit the growth that has made it so commonplace today. At that time very few people crossed the Atlantic by air. Most “home and family travelers,” as they were called, still were taking steamships out of Halifax, New York, or Montreal. Air travel remained largely the domain of the privileged few, or of those who were pressed for time. They would spend 16 hours or more in propeller driven planes to get from Toronto to London. They often endured very uncomfortable and bumpy rides, which did not help at all to gain a greater public acceptance for this new mode of travel.
Those were the circumstances that greeted Isobel when she was hired by BOAC’s Toronto Manager Don Oakey, DFC, to run the airline’s new ticket office on King Street West. The location was roughly across the street from the Bank of Commerce Building, then known as “The tallest office building in the British Empire.” It was largely due to her influence that this outlet developed into one of the most successful ticket offices of any airline in Canada. Her tall, almost regal presence, combined with a thorough knowledge of an industry that was in constant change, and a patient, reassuring personality, won the confidence and allegiance of business and vacation travelers alike. And above all, her blend of discipline and caring friendship forged a happy team of hard working colleagues who were all equally dedicated to the exciting challenge of promoting the benefits of air travel to a frequently nervous and skeptical public.
In March of 1960 Isobel witnessed the start of BOAC’s Toronto services with the arrival of the new Comet-4, the first commercial jet to touch down at Toronto. London was now only 8 hours away. It soon became the preferred gateway to the UK and to points in Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. At the same time the “Fly Now – Pay Later Plan” was introduced. This dual incentive of better connections and more lenient payment method immediately resulted in a huge increase of first-time transatlantic air travelers from Toronto and the rest of Ontario. It is difficult to describe the work and the patience this sudden flood of new and often anxious customers required from Isobel and from her staff, but it gave this group a golden opportunity to become widely respected for their reassuring professionalism and appreciated for their helpful service.
Perhaps two little anecdotes deserve mention here. An elderly gentlemen from Denmark came to the office to change his return flight and to have his ticket re-issued. On top of everything else, the ticket office had just been linked to the brand new BOADICEA reservations computer. When they punched in his current reservation, they must have had finger trouble, because the computer spat out the warning ‘ILLEGAL ENTRY’. The old gentleman, fascinated by the new gadget, had been watching closely and immediately began to shout, “No! I am not illegal! I am in this country legally! Look at my passport!” It took Isobel a lot of gentle diplomacy to calm him down. Another time she asked this writer to track down a highly slippery customer and to collect from him some ten thousand dollars he owed our company, a huge sum back in 1960. Flying first class on a regular basis between Toronto, London and Tokyo, he would pay in Tokyo with a check drawn on a Toronto bank and pay Isobel with a worthless check drawn on a bank at the opposite end of the world. The pressure was now on Isobel to have the buck stop in Toronto before this crook skipped town again that same evening, flying first class, of course. I managed to find and corner him and to get a certified check. From that day onward Isobel always called me Sherlock.
In those distant, formative years, now almost half a century ago, there were no laptops and there was no Internet that allowed people to choose and book their flights, pay for them by credit card, which then didn’t even exist, and to select their seats aboard an aircraft. All such arrangements and transactions then required personal contact with the air carrier or with its agents. An airline’s success, therefore, came by way of superior personal service, sometimes by gentle persuasion, and not quite as much by advertising as is the case today. This fact became of even greater importance to an airline that brought revolutionary new equipment to the largest market in Canada. In their sales efforts Isobel and her staff were keenly aware of the importance of travel agents. Among the stream of ticket office visitors there were many people who booked through travel agents. The briefings they received at the tickets office in turn helped agents to speed up making bookings.
The age of personal contact molded personalities such as Isobel’s. She felt perfectly relaxed in the company of mighty captains of industry who came for her to help them with their business itineraries, or of workmen taking time off from building Toronto’s subway so they could visit the “Old Country.” All were treated with equal courtesy. Neither did Isobel play favorites. If the plane was waitlisted, it was waitlisted. Nobody could throw his weight around. She also was fair. If a poor migrant lost a priceless wedding trousseau while the luggage was in the care of BOAC, Isobel fought for compensation. Perhaps most importantly, she genuinely loved her colleagues and they loved her back. Even after Isobel Stirling retired from British Airways, which as the reader knows sprang from the merger of BOAC and BEA, and after the company metamorphosed, leaving no more offices open in Canada, she devoted much of her time to the British Airways Retirees Association in Canada.
Civil aviation, humanity’s great innovation of the 20th century, was her calling. Her colleagues and her many friendships were her life’s purpose.
Here’s to you, Isobel"
How would Isobel have been able to visit her family in Scotland had she not had her BA concessions?
Indeed, how will any of us overseas be able to do so? My Scotish born husband Conor's family lives in the UK, we visit them annually.
It seems so unfair that the retirees of Air Canada and American Airlines will be able to travel on BA and we will not!
This tribute to Isobel is heartfelt by the writer and will be heartfelt by her friends and colleagues when they read it. I know Isobel would feel as we all do about the Staff Travel changes.
What we ask is so little, why is "our" airline treating us so miserably?
Best wishes
Maxine Walsh
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