Yesterdays P&L: GBP 480.30
Yesterdays Booze: 6 Pints of dry cider, 2 Stolichnaya Black Russians, 4 large Remy Martin XO.
Finally some profit! I was beginning to think I had lost my touch. My bearish viewpoint was justified as a small short position on the Dow 30 came good. I am incredibly tempted by cable, (GBP/USD), at 1.6177/79 and gold at 1106.2/7 so may be forced to risking more of my dwindling resources.
I wonder what to make of this British Airways strike. I am against it as I often need to fly to Alicante and they are the only airline that does a business class service. I just can't be bothered to fly Easyjet/Ryan Air, even if it is for only two and a half hours or so. Also I think British Airways cabin crew get a pretty good deal compared to other airline staff. So I don't really see why they are striking, having said that how can a court overturn a strike ballot? Does that mean that BA is now justified in sacking staff members for threatening to strike? It just seems excessively robber baron behavior.
The problem for BA staff is they lost the sympathy of the public by voting to go on strike at the busiest travel period of the year. Also no one has much sympathy for cabin crew, its not like its the hardest job in the world and at least in the UK we all know the kind of girls at school who would say I want to be an airline stewardess. Generally they were the pretty, self-obsessed girls who were right up their own arses. And many of them achieved it, you can see the attitude of them on the plane. It is quite obvious, even in business or first class that they are not really interested in the customers. They treat the job as an opportunity for them to travel and passengers are very much a distraction, Christ knows how the treat the economy class passengers? The BA staff are especially noted for their poor attitude to customers, although I have had some excellent service from some, usually male crew. I have only flown BA once long-haul and that was only to New York, so don't know what they are like on that service. When flying to Asia I almost always fly Emirates or Singapore which are both excellent. Gulf Air business class sucks so much I threw away the return segment of my ticket and went with Singapore Airlines.
Anyway after the holidays the airline will probably go on strike again, which will be financially ruinous. As the government has no interest in preserving British companies, ("like a tax-loss steel company with that peerage, guv? thanks for your donation"), no doubt they will allow BA to go under. Then take on the unfunded pension liabilities, ditch the loss making legacy routes, sell the landing slots at Heathrow and unwanted planes to other airlines. Then they can re brand the company as Britain's favorite discount airline, reemploy staff on a new contract basis. Gordon Brown can describe the new BA as an example of the innovative management style and flexibility that will enable British companies to compete in the future, although the company will be majority owned by Iberia, (all that press and nobody mentioned the Iberia merger). As the BA cabin crew adapt to working conditions that even O'Leary at Ryan Air regards as a bit tight fisted the crew can remember how hard done by they were at BA.
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3 comments:
Toni, I just slandered you as a possible Aussie on Midlife Crisis as a result of your comment there. And, here I find you are an English gentleman, well, at least you spell "arses" correctly if that is any measure.
Interesting post about BA. I was even more interested in the final comments about the Iberia merger. I used to fly with monotonous regularity on Aerolineas Argentinas between NZ and Buenos Aires. AR is also mostly owned by Iberia; I can assure you this is no recommendation. The one redeeming feature if AR on long haul was the last time I flew with them they still had smoking class, but apart from that one felt a sense of cattletruckishness. In this I was lucky, because being in the travel industry I always at in the pair of rear seats and blocked the other, hence I had some space.
Anyway, dash good post, must off to read more.
AV
AV, thanks for the comments and for stopping by, by the way I am Scottish not English. Having made the error of mistaking Kiwis for Australians in the past, I know what an important distinction this can be.
I have never been to Argentina, though I have dealt with them quite a lot after the debt default. I would love to go, it's a cliche but they always seemed to me to be a third world nation with a very first world attitude. I have flown Iberia and the old Varig and despite being massive tourist destinations, it strikes me that the Latinos haven't quite got the hang of the whole service industry ethos. Although I like the idea of a smoking section on an airplane. I myself am a non-smoker but can't for the life of me see why smoking shouldn't be allowed on sections of some planes. The air is recycled on these planes so unless you are a non-smoker sitting in the smoking section it shouldn't be too intrusive. Sadly it seems that devil worship and pedophilia are more acceptable than smoking in public these days.
LOL, you are so right about the lack of service ethic. I have worked in tourism here both as a consultant and tour guide, so am quite familiar with the pitfalls. Maybe I should take up smoking little boys then after having lit them on hellfire.
Sorry about the Scots/English confusion.
Argentina is a strange bird. You are right, however, I will add of the Porteños (people from Buenos Aires) Their heritage is Italian, their architecture French, they speak Spanish and think they are English.
AV
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