Can British Airways Survive Long Term ?

The ongoing fiasco with the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow has hit British Airways hard and Today BA announced that it is postponing its permanent move to T5 until June.

Terminal 5 is destined to be the home of all British Airways flights but in the first few weeks of operation they have cancelled hundreds of flights and lost probably thousands of bags.

British Airways is no stranger to industrial unrest which plagued it during the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years there have been strikes affecting all elements of its operation. 2005 saw workers being sacked from their catering supplier meaning all flights for a few days went without food and beverages and all of their flights being cancelled for 24 hours.

An averted cabin crew strike in January 2007 saw many virtually empty flights taking off as talks with unions went into the early hours and with flights previously cancelled (but reinstated) passengers just gave up with BA and went elsewhere.

And this year BA pilots have voted to strike  - Balpa members voted to strike over what they said were plans to staff BA OpenSkies with crews on inferior terms to those of existing staff. Balpa represents 3,000 of the 3,200 pilots that work for BA - talks are underway to try and avert strike action.

So what now? No new home at T5 regular strikes by staff? Do people really care?

It’s a strange place because BA regularly reports strong profits (mainly from its long haul premium classes) and passenger numbers are generally high.

The great thing about the human race is people have very short memories. Most problems with BA are generally short term and although many thousands of people are affected by delays and industrial action they will fly again with the same carrier in the future.

The planning for T5 however is a different issue. Most companies that go for a “big bang” solution of moving from a current proven and working operation to something completely new almost always fail - it is just too greater risk to bring something like this in all at once and now BA is using most of their time on damage limitation and disaster recovery rather than planning ahead.

But we will all forget about the problems although BA will always remain in the news for problems they have rather than excellent product or service. It may not be a great time to fly with BA until the summer months but everything will get better for the passengers and BA - until the next crisis they have to deal with !