Liaison Council still dancing to BA's tune

I find I have a unique perspective on two contrasting faces of British Airways.

On the one hand I am told by the ABAP treasurer that contributions to the Staff Travel Fighting Fund have been flowing into ABAP from BA pensioners around the world.

On the other, Sigrid Mapp, the Chairperson of the Liaison Council first refuses to communicate with either of the two people authorised by ABAP to speak and act on its behalf and later, when she is forced to say something, replies that she can’t possibly tell us anything about a reply to the letter she claims to have written to Mr Walsh in January until the next Liaison Council meeting in April.

ABAP has exercised extreme patience and accepted the procrastination of the Liaison Council since it claims to share our interests. But enough is enough and the time has come to face the fact that Mrs Mapp and her Liaison Council continue to dance to her master’s voice for continued delay is of benefit only to British Airways.

In what was likely to be futile desperation I wrote to Mrs Mapp, first dealing with her refusal to communicate with us:

A reasonable person might find it strange that someone who claims to represent pensioners only wants to correspond with those she chooses. Do you not think your actions might be seen by the pensioner universe as somewhat arrogant?

The facts of the matter seem to be these.

On 15 Feb you told us (ABAP) that you'd written to Mr Walsh in January on behalf of pensioners regarding the Staff Travel 2009 proposals and that he'd not yet replied.

On 3 Mar you wrote that you would reply on 13 Mar.

On 13 Mar you wrote and although it wasn't clear, it appeared that you might have had a response from Mr Walsh but you gave no details.

On the same date (and authorised by ABAP) I wrote and enquired if you had in fact received a response and if so what it was - as you'd promised to tell us back in February.

Now you decline to tell us until the next Liaison Council meeting.

Your excuse is that it's because you don't like the tone of the ABAP website. Frankly that is hardly your affair - or is it that your masters in British Airways don't like the tone of the website? Well, frankly it's none of their business either. What has been written there is the truth. If that is not the case and there are errors of fact, I have offered correction and apology but none has been requested. What we have done is to examine British Airways' excuses (like Clare Hatchwell's fatuous claim that the new arrangements were to save money) and to demolish them strand by strand. Other claims have been made by British Airways which, when we decide to publish, we will also refute item by item.

The fact is that British Airways has behaved despicably and unfairly, without any honourable or even sensible motivation or justification.

In your previous message to me you revealed in a sentence that may well come back to haunt you that "British Airways management knew how many pensioners would be affected by these changes and also the unhappiness it would cause".

Is that the height of British Airway’s management achievement - to define and penalise a specific group of people who they judge cannot respond, merely to show how big they are? That is the mindset of the playground bully. Is that how British Airways management wants to be regarded?

It seems incredible to conceive but it is clear that at a time when the airline is facing some of the biggest challenges of its existence, the CEO and other senior managers in British Airways have time to devise little vindictive plans to hurt a few thousand pensioners - for what? Creating - or
for that matter, resolving - this dispute isn't going to affect the bottom line.

It isn't going to make it easier to compete with European airlines flying UK - to the USA.

It isn't going to solve the missing baggage catastrophe. (Note this was written before the T5 fiasco.)

And meanwhile what is really happening? It is a picture of financial lunacy in which:

- Air France walks away with a share of the London - Los Angeles market,

- the BA European regional network is run down and eventually given away to FlyBe,

- Middle Eastern carriers like Emirates etc fly from Manchester, Birmingham and
Newcastle to Dubai several times every day,

- second level carriers like Zoom fly full aircraft from Cardiff, Manchester
and Glasgow to Toronto,

whilst the management of the premier British Airline labours over a scheme that will spoil the retirement of a few thousand former employees. If it wasn't true it would be called far-fetched.

The time has surely come Mrs Mapp to leave the asylum to the inmates - and if you do one honourable thing, join us.

On the other hand if you refuse to deal with pensioners (as the chairperson of ABAP has requested) then I seriously suggest you should consider whether you have any moral right to maintain your position as chairman of the Liaison Committee."

A second call for contributions has been made and pensioners who have already responded so generously might wonder why this was necessary. In fact it was this writer’s fault, in confusing explanation of the basis on which contributions would be handled. That confusion generated a large number of messages from pensioners intending to contribute but thinking that they should wait until later.

To maximise the value of contributions (and because contributors can verify their clearance reference their bank statement) they are not being acknowledged individually.

The next moves in our campaign are under way. A few of the many offers to help on the Working Group will shortly be taken up to form a small but representative group. Its first action will be to explore with a leading QC the various legal challenges that will be made against BA’s action in Staff Travel 2009. It will also lay the foundations of the next stage of the action which will involve everybody sympathetic to the inequity of the BA decision. Watch this blog and the ABAP website for news of how you can become involved.

Finally I think it relevant to comment on a view that has been expressed on a number of occasions regarding the level of sympathy we might expect from the general public who regard Staff Travel as a privileged, gold-plated perk? Of course air travel is a desirable benefit but the public should understand that most of it is only subload and also that we still pay the full taxes. Not only that but we also save BA money because if we weren’t occupying those subload seats BA would be paying the taxes due itself. Think about that next time you’re at the checkout behind a Tesco employee and in exchange for her Staff ID Card she gets a cash discount on the groceries she’s bought.