Flying Banana

Looks like BA are upsetting staff again, no meals on longhaul flights now..........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/4139582.stm

suzy

Probably better off!!!!!

GinaUK

BA are innocent *this* time. BA are using a company called "Gate Gourmet" to provide the in-flight meals. Gate Gourmet sacked a bunch of workers after they went on strike. Now Gate Gourmet hasn't got enough staff to prepare the meals.

Gina

Anastasia Beaverhausen

Its probably just as well. BA food is awful

Storini

I think the problem is ex-London long haul sectors only. If you are booked with them for Oz, the sector Sin->Mel/Syd should be OK as they pick up the food for that part of the flight there, probably from a different catering company. Similarly most inbound routes to the UK should be OK. Don't attempt to bring your packed lunch into Oz: food imports are prohibited and there are sniffer dogs to enforce the rules.

ub40fan

OMG Yesterday I booked tickets to San Diego at the end of this month with BA. I hope they sort it soon. They will put the champagne on board though, wont they :scared:

Bhoywonder

I've travelled with BA all over the world and found the food to be of a good standard. I suppose each to their own.

Storini

Some BA ex-LHR flights now suspended due to secondary strike action => http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4142408.stm

CasG

Worst flight meal I've had - long haul too (New york)

What the hell you are supposed to do with their buns??

Flying Banana

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...hreadid=185588

spalen

So aren't the unions fantastic.

600 people get fired for some reason related to going on an illegal strike and nearly crippling a small company of 2,000 staff... As a result another bunch of staff in the same union go on another illegal wildcat strike and bring down BA's flights out of London. BA will have to pay penalties to Qantas, etc, and they'll lose allllllll those business and non-business customers - which they cant afford to do because of the state of their industry.

Guess what the consequence will be - BA will cancel the Gate Gourmet contract as soon as they can when this is over and 2000 people will be out of work - morons. No doubt as a consequence of lost customers BA will lose some cabin crew and ancilliary staff too. Everyone is blaming BA but its got nothing to do with them how can they control the actions of 600 food prep people in a 3rd party organisation - yet the press are hammering BA.

These union leaders dont get it do they - everyone wants guaranteed employment but all they do when they behave like this is cause more financial disruption to a struggling company. Im sure Gate Gourmet could have come up with another option, divide the salary of 2,600 people by 2000 and give the 2000 remaining ones that option - give up 1/3rd of your salary and benefits so your 'comrades' can stay ... yeah right - lets see how much solidarity that brings.

Storini

I think many of those catering staff were once employed by BA, but it outsourced its catering activities some years ago and those employees were forcibly expelled into the new companies which were given the catering contracts.

Outsourcing is quite a fashion in Oz, unfortunately.

logan

oh how on days like this, i'm soooo cheery and relieved i'm not caught up in all that anymore!!

7 years with BA and i'd sooo had enough. Last summer was an absolute nightmare as an employee, and I can appreciate it wasn't much fun as a passenger either. In fact every summer's a nightmare these days, short of manpower, short of moral, short of good leadership (in Edinburgh), and now we have the seasonal strike.......

I feel for the staff who are gonna deal with the aftermath of these cancelled strikes. All the outstations,will have been told by LHR to cancel flights, as they won't have the capacity to cope with all the pax who're arriving only to find out their connex. cancelled.

All the frontline guys will just get abused, and def. do not get paid enough for that!

Alan & Sonia

From what you are saying...it sounds like BA have got the French working for them.....Bon Voyage

Flying Banana

I know what you mean Logan, the guys getting the abuse from the SLF will be the ones who have had no input into this problem.

Not surprised that the baggage handlers/loaders have walked out on an unofficial strike though, always were the most militant people in BA and looks like the cabin crew are spoiling for a fight too now.

Unfortunately it seems the norm in the UK aviation industry that poor management treat their staff like c**p and then wonder why eventually they do something like this. Doesn't make the strike right or help the thousands who are going to be stranded but there a lot more issues behind the scenes that don't get reported in the press which have led to this situation.

Hope it gets sorted out soon or there could be a lot more than just the 600 jobs at Gate Gourmet at risk.

And yes to the post above, BA catering used to be in house, during the 90's when Bob Ayling was in charge he outsourced pretty much everything he could with the aim of ending up with a 'virtual airline' consisting of the overpaid board of directors and a lot of subsidiary company's. All he did was piss off a huge proportion of the workforce who found themselves having pay and conditions reduced with no choice to the point where now most are totally fed up with their jobs and have little incentive to 'go the extra mile' for the passengers.