The Liaison Council Report

Spring 2024

by Chris Walker and Robert James

British Airways Former Staff Liaison Council

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The only info that the Liaison Council hold on you is the email address you gave us to send this newsletter.

The BA FSLC, which represents the views of all retirees, pensioners, and former employees of BA, is a long-standing group (and the only body) with which BA formally consults. It meets up to four times a year at Waterside.

If you're interested in helping former colleagues or wish to know more about what we do, please contact us at any time.

                                 Our e-mail is – Liaison.1.council@ba.com

Introduction

 First, an apology for the lack of an Autumn or Winter newsletter last year.  The Council met, as usual, during 2023 and as indicated in our last newsletter has made some changes to its membership and elected a new Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Secretary.

The Council has always kept in touch with other groups and clubs of BA former staff (including BA Clubs) with varying degrees of closeness and has been exploring how it could become or act as an ‘umbrella’ organisation for all such groups and clubs as well as continuing in its current and long-standing role.

The Council membership in 2024

 Chris Hodgkinson has stepped down from the post of Chairman after 6 years.  Nigel Carey and Robert James have stepped down as Deputy Chairman and Hon. Secretary, respectively.  All three remain on the Council as members. 

Former chairman Sigrid Mapp, who continued to assist the council with her expertise on Former Staff matters from home, has retired from the Council.

Frans de Graaf, Kenneth Ho, David Larkin and Sharad Mistry have or are retiring from the Council.  We wish all those leaving us well and thank them for their contributions to the work of the Council.

Alan Thomas, Maria Venn, Cecilia White and Alison Hartigan have joined the Council and are welcomed.

Alan Thomas has been elected as the new Chair of the Council.  Mike Bannister is the Deputy Chair and Alision Hartigan the Hon. Secretary.

Mark Hardy, Jackie Hogg, Robert Nightingall, Mickey Stewart and Chris Walker continue as members of the Council.

Report from Neil Chernoff, Director of Network and Alliances, BA

Neil joined us at one of our meetings last year and gave us a briefing on his work.

Amongst his responsibilities, as well as where BA flies to, is how many and what type of aircraft does BA need for the year ahead and thus determine increases and decreases in route capacity from the current season.  His role involves close liaison with Operations to prioritise the robustness of the operation and especially on-time departures.

He also speaks with HAL for gates and the CAA about fees.  Last summer BA was running at 94% of its 2019 capacity.  He told us that London is an O&D (Origin and Destination) for Premium markets which gives us resilience in both the Business and Leisure sectors. 

In T5 headcount was up with a level of Supervisors put back in place by BA to support new staff.

BA has sufficient destinations that need the capacity of the A380 to keep the current fleet going.  The A380 has a premium heavy seat configuration.  LHR to/from the USA was our biggest First-Class market which allows fleet viability on routes.  There was even a debate about private jet passengers migrating to BA First Class. 

Finally, Neil mentioned that we are getting out of Data Centres and going into the Cloud as well as improving the telephone system and the answering of calls.

We thanked Neil for his presentation and the following discussion we had with

him.

FSLC New Chairman

Alan Thomas has been elected by the Liaison Council to be the next chairman.

He comes well equipped to fulfil this position having worked for BA for over 43 enjoyable years. He left in August 2020 and remembers working with some fantastic colleagues during that time.

His Bio is impressive having joined British Airways on 08^th August 1977 and worked at the West London Air Terminal in telephone sales. On the same day he also met his future wife Linda, another BA colleague.

From West London he moved to Heathrow in 1979 taking up a position as Senior Check-in agent in T3 and in 1981 Ticket Agent Contract Handling T2.

In 1985 he became Customer Service Duty Manager in T3 and had the honour in 1986 of seeing off the last T3 flight at midnight before moving across to T4 to meet the very first flight arrival in the new terminal.

From 1999 he fulfilled several managerial roles including T4 Manpower Planning, 2002 T4 CSE Manager, 2003 T4 Special Services Manager.

In 2007 he moved to T5 to take up the role of Special Services Manager and in 2012 he became a Special Services Executive.

Alan reminded the new Council about the words Sean Doyle said to us last year when he attended one of our 2023 meetings. He gave us a presentation on the future and difficulties of the BA operation in an eco-friendly world.  

Sean also talked about the emotional links and relationships between BA and its Former Staff and welcomed their support.

We reported on Sean’s presentation in our 2023 Spring newsletter should you wish to reacquaint yourselves with what was said. For those people that have recently joined our newsletter distribution list we would be happy to forward his presentation on to you.

FSLC going forward.

As part of a new strategy the FSLC needs to move into the 21^st century and urgently requires a website. Potentially a 100k un-tapped former / retired staff could feed into the FSLC and ultimately provide a platform for discussion with BA. Some are already organised into groups that might want to become part of a bigger voice. However, it was pointed out that incoming traffic would need to be secure and closely monitored. An executive group would be formed to drive the proposal forward.   

The FSLC has no budget, and it was suggested that an option offered to us by BA Clubs would be to develop a website inside their own platform, it could be a cost - effective way to bring about an FSLC website.

ABAP - Association of British Airways Pensioners

ABAP serves the pension interests of current and retired British Airways staff.

The association is for everyone who has pension rights with British Airways – that means those still working as well as existing pensioners, and those who have not yet started receiving their pension from the company. ABAP is all about protecting your pension and giving you an objective view on how the schemes are doing.

 Why join ABAP? The short answer is your pension is valuable. Most current employees can speak to the airline through their Trade Unions, but once leaving BA we have no collective voice to ask questions about the schemes’ health or the implications of proposed changes – ABAP gives you that voice.

To join or find out more information,

please go to: -

https://www.abaponline.org/ or email the Membership Secretary at membership@abaponline.org

BA Clubs

Former Staff will be familiar with the Hotline programme that offers reduced prices on selected BA fares and BA Holidays. However, did you know that you can extend your membership of Hotline even after your entitlement to Staff Travel has expired?

 This is available via a special membership category of BA Clubs and once you are signed-up, you can access the Hotline programme and Perks at Work, a discount shopping portal that offers great savings on a wide range of goods and services, including all the major supermarkets.

Benenden Health

"Benenden Health for Information only” https://www.benenden.co.uk

Former colleagues who subscribe to this company suggested that we provide the company's web address along with our newsletter for information purposes only.

“We have to draw your attention to the fact that neither BA or the Former Staff Liaison Council endorse this company or offer advice on private medical insurance."

Staff Travel

 Some former / Retired staff who are not frequent flyers will now be booking with myIDTravel when they make bookings for other carriers. If you have not accessed the site before it is further complicated by an extra level of security, you will need to complete by setting up a PingID account.

If you have trouble setting this up be advised that you can contact the BA IT Service Centre on + (0)44 020 8562 4000 for assistance.

BA wants to make travelling easier for you. That’s why they have introduced a new interline staff travel booking website, called myIDTravel. The platform also makes it easier to book and list for flights with airlines we already have agreements with.

myIDTravel does not replace the booking system for booking travel on BA for you and your nominees and is only used for booking with other carriers. The service fee for using myIDTravel is also less than it used to be. If you don’t travel or use the tickets, both the tickets and the fee are fully refundable.

Supporting retired staff for over 50 years

The Retired Staff Association (RSA) was formed in 1962 by British European Airways (BEA) following a questionnaire to provide the opportunity for retired staff to meet socially and travel together on outings and short holidays.

We have recently relocated to an office in the British Airways Distribution Centre near Hounslow. The committee is run entirely by retired staff volunteers who also offer help and support to our members.

The lifetime membership entitles a member and associate member to all RSA activities, including association days held at Bedfont Football Club on the 3^rd Monday of each month, social events, outings and holidays. These are held in both the UK and overseas.  

The activities of the London group can be found on https://www.rsaba.com/.

The Crew Social

The ‘Crew Social’ group of websites was formed in 2017 by the FSLC’s Mark Hardy with the aim of keeping as many as possible current and former crew in touch with each other and as a touch of nostalgia for any who wanted to so-indulge.

Since that time, membership has grown to over 10k – principally cabin crew, but with a fair sprinkling of pilots as well. As can be imagined, some of the memories are quite hilarious… and probably wouldn’t even be believed in ‘normal’ circles! 

But memories they were and still are for those who always regarded themselves as having a ‘second family’ at 35,000 feet when away for up to 21 days at a time..

The little CS ‘empire’ has grown over the years to include further sites covering things like a non-Facebook website with basic info such as a Forum, Staff Travel info and ‘Absent Friends’, plus others covering home support, classified ads, singles dating and reunions.

All in all, a popular long-term introduction for the group’s members.’  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1453372134675737

Absent Friends

Absent Friends is published by BA Pensions monthly but can be found in various locations including BA Clubs, Crew Social and the Retired Staff Association websites.

It’s always sad when you come across a name you recognise from the past that is no longer with us especially when you are now former or retired staff. Their names may well conjure up memories of lost friendships and work colleagues that you or they moved away from during your career at BA.

Return of Concorde G-BOAD to the Intrepid Museum New York City

Oh, how times have changed from trying to ban services into New York in the 1970’s to eventually agreeing, to the first British Airways Concorde service which started in November 1977.

Now a much-loved icon of the 20^th century Concorde G-BOAD (Alpha Delta) has been for a complete restoration and returned to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum New York City Pier 86 for all to see and marvel over.

Same can’t be said unfortunately for G-BOAB (Alpha Bravo) Heathrow based Concorde which has been moved from pillar to post during its retirement. A worthy home needs to be found where it can be cared for and shown off publicly to its full potential in striking BA livery along with all the other Concordes still in the UK.

In its heyday Concorde was like an atomic clock that you could set your watch by. Those lucky enough to view a departure could stand in awe at the BA engineering base and watch the evening take-off to New York. With goose bumps and hair standing on end the reheat was applied and she sprung into life.

The graceful bird noisily climbed into its natural habitat and majestically slipped into the sunset along with many happy passengers bound for the US. A beautiful Anglo / French engineering masterpiece ahead of its time never to be repeated it seems and missed by all.   

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