BA ain't gonna fly no plane

Ah, British Airways...... where has it gone so wrong for them?

Last year I blogged about the terminal 5 fiasco and how it was quite aparrent there was something very, very wrong with the management culture at BA. I put it down you young graduates being parachuted into management jobs, ostensibly to become yes men and women: people that had so little experience that they could only agree with whatever upper management decreed. I gave them 5 years at most before they became history.

It seems I was right on the money, because whatever is going on within British Airways (someone with inside information please tell me, because it must be a fascinating insight into flawed management culture), it now seems the workers are squaring up to managers and going on strike over Christmas and New Year.

This is despite BA staff being some of the best paid in their sector of employment, despite BA's business strategy crashing and burning, despite profits plummeting, despite there being the worst unemployment in decades, despite the recession.

Neither side it seems, want to compromise, see sense or back down. From where I'm standing, looking in, I see a very poorly run operation indeed. For it to come to this point, when in effect strike action will if not kill, will certainly cripple the company for decades, is madness. For BA employees to vote in favour of strike action under the present circumstances, either they're stupid, fallen out badly with management, been very badly informed, or hideously manipulated by the Unions.

They say turkeys don't vote for Christmas, but this might be the one exception.