1958: Two DeHavilland Comets depart London and New York, each bound for the other city. Flying for the British Overseas Airways Corporation, the two aircraft complete the first trans-Atlantic jet passenger service, dramatically reducing the travel time between the United States and Europe.
Jet airliners had been around since the Comet first carried passengers from London [...]
Posts Tagged ‘British Airways’
Oct. 4, 1958: ‘Comets’ Debut Trans-Atlantic Jet Age
October 4th, 2010 |
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Tourists bowled over by £215 flights
July 20th, 2009 |
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British Airways and Qantas offer dramatically reduced tickets to Australia based on Ashes scores
Tourists bowled over by £215 flights
July 20th, 2009 |
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British Airways and Qantas offer dramatically reduced tickets based on Ashes first innings scores
Capitalising on an upsurge in national happiness following England’s victory over Australia this afternoon, British Airways and Qantas have teamed up to offer fares to Australia based on the first innings scores of the second npower test, with the number of seats determined by the amount of runs scored by the opposing team.
As Australia were all out for 215 in their first innings reply to England’s 425 on Saturday, both British Airways and Qantas will be giving away 425 flights to Sydney for £215 – an amazing reduction on a typical fare of £730. The offer is available tomorrow (21 July, 2009) on British Airways flights from 10am, and Qantas flights from 8am.
In the previous Ashes in 2005, British Airways offered 367 seats at £373 when Australia scored 367 runs for 373 against England in the final test. Flights were sold out within 30 minutes.
For terms and conditions please check each airline’s website from 21 July. For further information visit ba.com and qantas.com . Offer is subject to availability.
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Airlines suffering ‘annus horribilis’
July 14th, 2009 |
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British Airways chairman Martin Broughton ruled out turning to its existing shareholders for cash, saying the time was not right for a rights issue
British Airways admitted today that it must raise its cash reserves if it is to survive the crisis sweeping the airline industry, following an “annus horribilis” in which it suffered a record loss.
At the start of its annual general meeting at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, the UK national carrier said it would increase its liquidity levels by raising fresh capital from the City. BA also admitted its pensions deficit was higher than expected, adding to the pressure on the company.
“We believe it to be in the interests of our shareholders to look at options to increase our own liquidity. Our current liquidity is above our desired minimum of 15% of revenues. However, an extended economic downturn would be stretching,” said Martin Broughton, the chairman of British Airways.
But Broughton ruled out turning to its existing shareholders for cash, saying the time was not right for a rights issue.
He also referred to one of Queen Elizabeth II’s most famous sayings to sum up the last year.
“This has indeed been an ‘annus horribilis’ for the aviation industry,” Broughton said.
Angry staff congregated at the AGM to call on chief executive Willie Walsh to resign.
Inside the centre, Walsh emphasised the state of the crisis facing BA, which made a record pretax loss of £401m last year.
Walsh said “there has been a structural shift in our premium markets”, adding that expecting the business class market to return to its former state was “the road to oblivion”.
For years, business class travel has been a crucial part of BA’s revenue stream. But it has been ravaged by the global downturn.
“Corporate travel budgets have been cut back severely and consumers are determined to reduce their debt,” BA admitted.
Broughton admitted that BA’s pension deficit had increased since last September, when it was calculated at £1.74bn. The value of its two funds is currently being calculated, but BA today ruled out increasing its own contribution.
“In the past three years, the company has paid £1.8bn into the two schemes, in an effort to eliminate the deficit. It is a sobering thought that this level of contribution is far in excess of our cumulative profits, which have been £1bn, over the same period,” said Broughton.
“To make up the shortfall, the company and trustees will need to agree a revised funding plan after the actuarial review is completed.”
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BA pilots vote for 2.6% salary cut
July 13th, 2009 |
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• Pilots agree to take salary cut and work longer hours
• Chief executive expected to be barracked at AGM
Willie Walsh, the embattled chief executive of British Airways, faces a mauling from shareholders and his own staff at the airline’s annual meeting, tomorrow despite securing a crucial pay deal with the fleet’s pilots, which will see them accept a pay cut and longer hours as management tries to slash costs.
Unions representing baggage handlers, cabin staff and ground crew will mount a protest outside the AGM in London over management plans to lay off thousands of workers. Shareholders are also expected to barrack Walsh during the meeting over the dramatic downturn in the flag carrier’s fortunes, which has already seen the company stop paying dividends and looks set to result in an emergency cash call.
Walsh, who has agreed to forgo his £61,000 wage for the month of July to show he means it when he says BA is battling for its survival, is looking to stem the airline’s losses, which are running at nearly £3m a day. In May, BA revealed that the recession has turned record profits of £992m two years ago into a record pretax loss of £401m last year.
A deal with BA’s 3,200 pilots is a small victory for Walsh, but his battle to reduce the company’s overheads as it suffers a plunge in lucrative business travel is by no means over. Management is still locked in talks at the conciliation service Acas after a self-imposed deadline of 30 June passed without any deal with cabin staff and ground crews.
BA’s bosses want unions to agree to a deal that would freeze pay for two years and result in the loss of 3,700 jobs – or almost 10% of the workforce – including 2,000 voluntary redundancies from its 14,000 flight attendants. They also want staff to agree to wide-ranging changes to their terms and conditions.
Management this year asked staff to consider working for free or taking unpaid leave, and nearly 7,000 employees applied for voluntary pay cuts, including 800 who said they would work for nothing for up to a month. The move, which will save the carrier up to £10m, was attacked by some union leaders who feared staff were being bullied into signing up.
Unions will hand out letters to shareholders outside today’s meeting pointing out that staff are proud to work for BA and it is bosses who are out of step, making doom-laden pronouncements about its future just a year after it produced record-breaking profits.
“All BA employees are ready and willing to pull together to secure a vibrant future for the company, but they desperately need to see that BA senior management want to work with them towards this objective, not blame them for a situation which is not of their making,” the letter reads. “The staff are willing to listen and respond, but feel under pressure to agree to measures – like working for free – that they simply can’t afford. There is also no merit whatsoever in management adopting unrealistic and intransigent positions during discussions with staff representatives.”
Protesters will have a dozen live lemmings with them outside the meeting and placards bearing slogans including “British Airways deserves better than to be led by lemmings” and “Willie, time to head to the departure gate?”.
Walsh, however, is likely to take heart from his success in persuading BA’s pilots to accept a pay cut. The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) said that 94% of its members who voted were in favour of accepting a 2.6% salary cut to help the cash-strapped airline save £26m. As part of the deal, BA’s pilots have agreed to an increase in annual duty hours, a cut in turn-around times on short-haul flights and reductions in the flight-crew arrangements on certain long-haul routes. There will also be 78 redundancies. In return, pilots will be able to pick up BA shares in two years’ time worth about £13m.
Balpa’s general secretary, Jim McAuslan, admitted that it was “an unaccustomed position” for a union to be calling on members to support a drop in pay but said: “We are satisfied that this step is necessary to help BA recover its position as one of the world’s most successful airlines.”
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British Airways jet evacuated
July 11th, 2009 |
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Passengers escape down emergency slides as flight BA288 prepares for take-off in Phoenix, Arizona
Hundreds of passengers have been evacuated from a British Airways jet after smoke filled the cabin just before take-off.
The Boeing 747 had been preparing to depart for Heathrow from Phoenix Airport in Arizona this morning when passengers reported an acrid smell. All on board escaped down the plane’s emergency slides.
A passenger on flight BA288, Corinne Casazza, said: “There was this really strong smell of fuel and I could hear people panicking behind me. They were upset and finding it hard to breathe because of the smell.
“People were coughing and choking and those with children were very worried and so they brought them to the front where they could breathe.
“We asked if we could open the doors but were told we couldn’t because we were still moving.
“There was a lot of pushing and shoving – everyone just wanted to get off the plane.”
Another passenger said the cabin filled with smoke and people had to cover their faces because of the smell.
“It was horrific – it smelt like rubber burning, or something like that,” she said.
No serious injuries were reported but about 15 people had minor cuts and bruises
A BA spokesman said: “The plane was being pushed back from the stand when there were reports of smoke. A decision was taken to evacuate the aircraft following the usual procedures.”
Fire crews found smoke in the cabin and in the cargo compartment, but no fire was discovered, said a spokeswoman for Phoenix fire department. Safety officials believed the smoke and smell were caused by an electrical problem.
BA has organised hotel rooms for the stranded passengers while engineers examine the plane.
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British Airways staff reject cost-cutting plan
July 6th, 2009 |
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Cabin crew, baggage handlers and check-in workers refuse to accept plans to axe thousands of jobs and freeze pay
British Airways workers have rejected management plans to cut costs through thousands of job losses and a two-year pay freeze.
A union spokesman said feelings among the airline workers were “running high” at a meeting held today of more than 2,000 employees, close to Heathrow airport. “They have sent a very clear message that they don’t want us to make any further concessions that would lead to an assault on their terms and conditions,” he said.
BA is struggling to cope with the downturn in air travel and in May reported losses of £401m.
It has already stirred controversy by asking staff to take unpaid leave, reduce hours or even work for nothing for up to a month to conserve cash, a request that unions branded “insulting”.
Fresh talks with BA are due to be held on Wednesday.
There is no threat of strike action but disruption over the summer is a clear possibility. BA was hit by an unofficial strike in 2003 over terms and conditions and was grounded again in 2005 by a dispute over catering staff.
BA pilots reached a deal last month that will see them taking a 2.6% pay cut and save the airline £26m. The current talks cover other workers including cabin crew, baggage handlers and check-in staff. It is believed there are still wide differences between the management and unions.
The carrier had hoped to reach a deal by a self-imposed deadline of the end of last month, but has now called in the arbitration service Acas.
BA said last month that 7,000 staff had applied for voluntary pay cuts, including 800 who agreed to work for nothing for up to a month. BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, who has given up his pay for July, said it had been a “fantastic” response. Unions, though, have accused the airline’s managers of putting workers under pressure to accept a cut, which the airline denies.
Unions have also noted that Walsh is far better placed to work without pay for a month – his monthly earnings of £61,000 are twice the average annual salary for cabin crew.
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Virgin Atlantic to cut 600 jobs
July 1st, 2009 |
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Firm announces it will reduce capacity over winter as rival BA asks Acas to mediate in pay and jobs dispute with unions
Virgin Atlantic has announced plans to axe almost a tenth of its services this winter with the loss of up to 600 jobs as the recession continues to bite into the airline industry.
The Richard Branson-led company said it would not run its daily service from Heathrow to Chicago this coming winter and was suspending one of its two daily services between Heathrow and Hong Kong.
It added that there would be additional frequency reductions on some other routes throughout the winter, with a total capacity cut of 7% compared with last winter.
Rival British Airways has been badly hit by the slump and announced that it had asked the arbitration service Acas to mediate in its pay and job cuts dispute with unions after negotiations collapsed yesterday.
Virgin said that it would shortly start consultations with staff “about the possibility of up to 600 redundancies across the business”.
Promising to avoid making compulsory redundancies, Virgin Atlantic’s chief executive, Steve Ridgway, said: “The outlook for the industry is as bleak as ever and all airlines are having to shrink their businesses. The fittest will survive and be in a stronger position when the economy grows.”
It comes just days after Virgin boss Richard Branson declared that British Airways was virtually worthless. But any schadenfreude felt by BA’s chief executive Willie Walsh will be tempered by his ongoing row with unions.
The two sides have missed BA’s self-imposed deadline to reach an agreement on the restructuring by the end of June. Yesterday night, talks broke down with the two sides unable to make any progress, despite the fact that negotiations had been going on for several weeks.
Union representatives ended talks at a Heathrow hotel at about 6pm yesterday, some hours before the midnight deadline, but were prepared to continue the meeting today. It is understood that BA decided not to attend. A spokeswoman for the airline would only confirm that no talks were currently under way. No date had been set for the Acas talks.
There are fears that the continuing dispute could result in strikes taking place during the peak holiday season.
Unite, the union representing most of BA’s staff, said that it acknowledged the airline needed to cut costs. But it said it was opposed to BA’s plans to replace workers – particularly cabin crew – with new staff on lower pay because of fears it would create a “two tier” workforce.
The airline wants unions to agree to a deal that would freeze pay for two years. The airline is also looking to cut 4,000 jobs, or about 10% of its workforce, and has not ruled out making compulsory redundancies. It also wants staff to agree to wide-ranging changes to their terms and conditions to reduce costs.
BA says the cuts are essential to ensure its survival. The airline is making heavy losses, burning through cash at nearly £3m a day. It posted a £401m deficit last year. Walsh told BA’s in-house newspaper that it had set the 30 June deadline for agreement with unions because “we were disappointed by the pace of progress” and because “time is running out”. “The sooner we face up to the challenges the better it will be for everyone,” he added.
Unite, which represents most of BA’s workforce, has accused Walsh of trying to intimidate staff into accepting new terms. Last week, unions said the airline had undermined the negotiations after it announced that 6,940 staff had volunteered for a temporary pay cut, including 800 employees who will work for nothing for up to a month.
Andy Cook, managing director of industrial relations consultancy Marshall-James , said that BA was paying the price for missing opportunities in the past to renegotiate workers’ terms and conditions. He added that the possibility – however unlikely – that the government could step in to bail out British Airways may embolden workers to resist new terms.
“Willie Walsh may be using the recession as an excuse to cut more costs, but I don’t thing he is crying wolf. It’s quite possible that employees who have been around a long time and who are perhaps very resistant to change feel that the government would bail them out if it came to the crunch.”
Walsh and his chief financial officer, Keith Williams, have attempted to lead by example by waiving their wages for July.
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BA fails to agree pay deal with unions
July 1st, 2009 |
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British Airways has failed to meet its self-imposed deadline to secure an agreement on pay and conditions for its 40,000 staff after trade union officials adjourned talks on a two-year pay freeze and 4,000 redundancies.
Discussions at a Heathrow airport hotel ended tonight with key issues unresolved, and the threat of strike action still hanging over the airline. BA has asked for a two-year halt for salary increases and is seeking job cuts representing around 10% of the workforce, according to sources close to the talks.
The Unite and GMB unions said they were willing to resume talks at 10am tomorrow morning. However, BA is refusing to confirm that it will attend. Instead the airline issued a terse statement, saying: “The talks have ended. We will comment in due course.” Sources close to the talks said the carrier is attempting to sweeten the pay freeze by offering employees shares in the company. However, trade union negotiators are believed to harbour concerns over the effects on pensionable pay and the need for a two-year pause in wage deals when other companies have negotiated shorter agreements.
The Unite union, which represents 28,000 BA workers, accused BA managers of treating the talks “as if several Christmases have come at once” by demanding a swathe of concessions on pay, working conditions and staff numbers. Steve Turner, Unite’s secretary for aviation, played down the prospect of imminent industrial action, but warned that BA would have to water down its agenda.
“If they are willing to reach an agreement we can reach an agreement. I just wish they spent as much time talking to us about the art of the possible as they did about their wish list,” Turner said. “They are trying to force through all the things that they have not been able to secure in 25 years.”
The GMB Union, which represents a further 7,000 BA staff, said it was not walking away from the talks, but refused to recognise the deadline of 30 June set by the BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, who has warned that the airline is in a “fight for survival.”
Mick Rix, a GMB official, said: “There is no critical deadline. It is not as if the company is bust.” Rix added that BA was proposing a “two-tier workforce” with new joiners being given different pay and conditions to current employees. Up to 4,000 redundancies are also being sought, with 2,000 voluntary reductions from 14,000 cabin crew.
Both unions argue that the recession is a cyclical phenomenon that should not be used by BA as an opportunity to drive through permanent changes and a wholesale restructuring of the business. However, BA’s pilots have already accepted Walsh’s warning and have signed up to a 2.6% pay cut in an agreement that will save the airline £26m.
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