Firstly, the good news. the Lufthansa strike was called off last night as pilots and management agreed to talk to each other again. It may mean that some aircraft are out of place this morning so check with Lufthansa to see if there are any problems.
The first bit of bad news is that British Airways’ cabin crew members of Unite have voted overwhelmingly for strike action. You might remember that they voted for action before Christmas but BA management won a court action which said the ballot hadn’t been operated properly. (see CD-Traveller 21 January and 15 December). No dates have been announced for the strike and it may be significant that Unite have said that they want to talk to BA management first. (For a view from the inside see Ian’s comments at the end of the piece on 21st January.)
The second piece of bad news is that, from today, French air traffic controllers start a 4 day strike which will affect flights throughout French air space. About 50% of flights in and out of Paris Orly are expected to be cancelled and a quarter through Paris Charles de Gaulle. The strike coincides with French school holidays.

The decision before Christmas by the courts to view the 12 days strike by the union Unite at BA (see CD-Traveller 15/12/09) as illegal meant that it was nearly inevitable that there would be another strike ballot. That has been announced for next week.
Last time the criticism of the length and timing of the strike almost made the public strong supporters of the BA management since the cabin crew or Unite were seen as deliberately trying to ruin people’s Christmas. This time maybe the union and the cabin crew have learnt from that PR debacle.

Some people were trapped on Eurostar trains for 12 hours and claim they were told nothing. It has been said that one driver even locked himself in his engine cab. Allbury Travel went into liquidation yesterday (they own Libra and Argos Holidays) and passengers claim they were kept in the dark. On Thursday when flyGlobespan went into liquidation I was at Glasgow Airport and there was no information at their desk in the airport. When there was the terminal 5 debacle earlier this year, one major complaint was the delay of both British Airways and BAA to come and talk to passengers.
What is clear in that each of these cases information was not given to the passengers quickly enough for them to feel that that they were kept up to date.

UPDATE 17 December: the courts have ruled the strike illegal because the balloting of union members had not been correctly carried out. This means that the 12 day strike cannot now take place.

The carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, takes on a new meaning this year since it coincides with the number of days of strike action at British Airways. And I won’t be the last to wonder whether the number was particularly chosen by the strikers in order to ram home the iniquity of goodwill to all men excepting for British Airways passengers.
I’m not concerned in taking sides in this argument. For one thing I don’t know enough since all I see and hear is the propaganda from either side. My interest is in the passengers. Over 12 days, some 7000 flights might be axed. That could easily involve over a million passengers

British Airways has announced its list of 10 destinations that it thinks will influence you to decide where to go on your holidays next year. In any list like this you have to bear a couple of things in mind, the first being that BA flies to all the destinations it suggests and therefore that may have influenced the list. Secondly it is subjective. We don’t know how these places got on the list. Probably some “expert” decided or it coincided with a new or improved service to that destination by BA. I could be completely wrong there but, as I said, who knows. Still it is interesting to se whether our ideas match those of BA.

The list is Cape Town, Istanbul, Las Vegas, Vancouver, Punta Cana (Dominican Republic), Dubrovnik, New York, Stockholm, the Maldives and Delhi.

“I don’t believe people fly because they like the idea of flying.”

That came out of the mouth of Willie Walsh, the head of British Airways in an interview with BBC’s “Costing the Earth” on Radio 4. I listened to it twice because the first time I wasn’t sure that I really heard it but it was still on the repeat so why these intriguing words?

We are used to the no frills airlines charges us for just about anything that they can come up with but up until now we haven’t faced fees from UK traditional airlines.

Now BA has joined the club.

Being small, I don’t really have problems with seats in planes. With short legs nearly every plane is reasonably comfortable for me but then, I am not like most people.

Over the last fifty years or so people have grown. Not just in height but by girth as well. But in most cases, airline seats haven’t.

Wallow in nostalgia for a moment.

Do you remember when flying was fun and an adventure?

No, neither do I. It has always been a chore. Just as one thing improves flying, online check-in for example, something comes up to make it more difficult.

The outbreak of a flu virus in Mexico has prompted some of the strangest media coverage. On the one hand, there have been the stories of returning holidaymakers suffering from flu like symptoms and the spread of the virus to other countries and on the other, plaintive stories of people who have had their holiday [...]