SwindonTartanArmy
Go Team GB!
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Posts: 2917
London Scottish - More History than Franchise!
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« Reply #60 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 16:19:58 » |
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Great! I'll send you a postcard heid! |
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Vi er best i verden! Vi er best i verden! Vi har slått England 2-1 i fotball!! Det er aldeles utrolig! Vi har slått England! England, kjempers fødeland. Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana--vi har slått dem alle sammen. Vi har slått dem alle sammen. Maggie Thatcher can you hear me?
Your boys took a hell of a beating!"
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RobertT
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Posts: 12329
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« Reply #61 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 17:08:57 » |
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The way BA are heading the best these employees can hope for is that the merged company with American Airlines in about 3-4 years doesn't fancy chopping thousands more jobs due to duplicated schedules and efficiencies through being 1 company - that's the best this one is going to end up. As Alan said, BA is in real trouble, losing money, losing business, paying stupid money to keep hold of Heathrow landing slots they can no longer fill anyway, trying to fund an ever increasing Pension defecit and hampered by years of over paying to it's staff. Top that off by having a pretty contemptable bunch running the show and workers used to years of having it easy, it's a recipe for melt down. The fact it's Unite they are dealing with just made this a PR disaster for all concerned. Unite, an ironic name for a merged Union that still has 2 leaders because they can't agree who should run the show (Oh, and their salary and benefits in kind is pretty hefty as well, so much for Unions representing those in need of help!).
Still, the end result could be companies like Virgin, Qantas etc taking over their schedules and providing us all with better service anyway. They'll need to increase staff to manage this, so the BA redundant employees can apply for jobs on lower pays but in companies they may be happy working for.
The strange thing for the UK is, we only really have BA in a complete mess of the big carriers - compare that to the US where Southwest are pretty much the only success story in the past 20 years.
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genf_stfc
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Posts: 1272
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« Reply #62 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 21:15:06 » |
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i think the union leaders all have one eye on the fact that the labour leadership will be up for grabs very soon, and won't be settled finally before the election afterthis one. they are all manoeuvering to up their militant credentials a bit for their CVs. it worked out OK for alan johnson last time around. all the workers think they will get something out of it, and in the short term they might, but then there is a good chance the companies they've stitched up will go bust further down the line. and the customers that have paid a months wages on products they won't get with no recourse for a refund will have exactly fuck all sympathy for them
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Talk Talk
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« Reply #63 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 21:16:32 » |
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I lost my patience with BA and gave up on them when after the Paris Air France Concorde crash they decided to only fit five of the seven fleet with Kevlar fuel tank liners. This meant that they could only do one round trip from Heathrow to JFK a day and it effectively killed the Concorde business market. The guys and gals with megabucks wanted to come back the same day.
Air France Concordes were always light on traffic, for them it was just super models, designers and wealthy tourists. BA had the investment bankers and other city types. The ones with serious money.
I know that there were only so many years left in that superb aeroplane, probably another five or so, but it really did give BA an edge and reflected well on the rest of their more mundane operations. They became just another carrier afterwards and overpriced at that.
When the Concorde scale model was removed from the roundabout at the entrance to Heathrow the magic died and the company followed.
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genf_stfc
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Posts: 1272
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« Reply #64 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 21:20:30 » |
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the concorde thing is interesting, apparently they suffered really badly on septemebr 11th becasue ~30% of their regular travellers were in the twin towers at the time
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BANGKOK RED
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« Reply #65 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 21:36:01 » |
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the concorde thing is interesting, apparently they suffered really badly on septemebr 11th becasue ~30% of their regular travellers were in the twin towers at the time
I find that a tad hard to believe. |
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Talk Talk
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« Reply #66 on: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 21:40:54 » |
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the concorde thing is interesting, apparently they suffered really badly on septemebr 11th becasue ~30% of their regular travellers were in the twin towers at the time
Likewise, BR. Sauce, Genf? |
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pumbaa
Ha, no cunt in my title anymore. Oh.....
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Posts: 6351
Fartmeister
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« Reply #67 on: Friday, December 18, 2009, 20:53:23 » |
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BA do take the piss though. Used to fly to Atlanta on business Club Class three times a year. Return ticket = 4500 quid as opposed to Economy at 450 quid. Was always full too, much to my surprise. How on earth anyone can justify that price tag, even several years ago, is beyond me.
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genf_stfc
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Posts: 1272
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« Reply #68 on: Sunday, December 20, 2009, 13:44:21 » |
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Likewise, BR.
Sauce, Genf?
i think it was on that channel 4 thing about 911 a couple of months ago. or on the concorde thing a few months before that. surprised me too, but they did apparently have a small number of travellers that used concorde once a week, apparently - they must have been loaded -and the business largely depended on that constant income. |
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