So we are here again. Unite's relentless insistence on Groundhog Day amounts to another cold-blooded threat to the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of innocent people trying to pursue normal lives.
Unite does not care about ordinary people. It regards the travelling public as expendable victims in its blinkered efforts to improve what is already an extremely fair package for cabin crew.
In the worst recession for 80 years, British Airways is heading for a second year of record annual losses.
Our revenue will be down £1 billion (Dh5.58 billion) this year, and we cannot hope to build a sustainable airline for the future unless we cut costs.
Many thousands of British Airways staff understand this. Our pilots and engineers agreed to efficiencies months ago. A third of our managers volunteered for redundancy.
And nearly 7,000 colleagues put their hands up for temporary pay cuts because they wanted to help our company in its time of need. They understand that British Airways has no God-given right to exist. They understand that if you don't adapt to the changing world in which you operate, you are heading for the history books.
Look at Japan Airlines. A flag-carrying stalwart of global aviation for decades, which plunged into bankruptcy in January.
Message
Yet Unite, to which our cabin crew belong, refuses to get the message. It prefers to believe the earth is flat. It believes nothing changes.
That economies go on growing for ever. That competition does not increase.
Everyone knows that British Airways cabin crew are the best rewarded in the UK industry. According to the Civil Aviation Authority, the costs of British Airways crew are twice those of their Virgin Atlantic counterparts.
After nine months of fruitless talks with Unite about reducing crew numbers, we went ahead last October with accepting requests from 1,000 crew for voluntary redundancy and from another 3,000 crew for switches to part-time working.
To accommodate these requests, we made a modest reduction in our onboard crew numbers on flights from Heathrow. On a 747, for example, we trimmed the complement of crew from 15 to 14. And we now include the crew supervisor in the cabin routines to maintain customer service levels.
These are the changes Unite tried to reverse through legal action — despite the fact that for years it has agreed to operate our flights from Gatwick with equivalent numbers. The High Court rejected Unite's arguments. It ruled that our changes had not breached crews' contracts, were reasonable and implemented properly.
But if Unite thinks a strike will ground this airline, it will be disappointed. The flag will continue to fly.
We will run a full operation from London City airport. At Gatwick, we plan to fly all our long-haul services and some shorthaul.
And at Heathrow, we plan to operate significant numbers of long-haul flights. I will not allow Unite to ruin this company. I will not allow it to frustrate our plans to come through this recession, strengthen our business and improve services for customers and opportunities for all staff.
— Bloomberg News
