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Dan Milmo
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EasyJet and Ryanair top complaints league
Mar 12th
Cancellations and missing bags dominate mailbox
Lib Dems say standards are falling with prices
The aviation watchdog has revealed that easyJet and Ryanair were the subject of the most complaints from British airline passengers last year.
Cancellations, missing bags and denied boarding were among the gripes that saw Europe’s largest budget airlines dominate the mailbox at the Air Transport Users’ Council (AUC).
EasyJet had the most complaints of any major airline, with 719; Ryanair, which revels in its penny-pinching notoriety, was not far behind with 673.
The Liberal Democrats, who secured the figures in a freedom of information request, said the numbers proved that service standards were a casualty of lower fares.
Ryanair complaints have risen by 70% since 2005 and easyJet’s by a third over the same period.
“This huge across-the-board rise in complaints shows that at some airlines customer service is going out of the window,” said Norman Baker, the Lib Dem transport spokesman. “They think they have a captive market and can treat their passengers badly and get away with it.”
Cancellations and flight delays accounted for more than four out of 10 complaints to Ryanair and easyJet last year. The usual budget airline whinges – baggage limits and extra charges – accounted for only about 6% of the two airlines’ complaints.
One industry analyst said the apparent surge in passenger anger at the budget airlines was comparatively small considering their growth over the past 10 years.
In 2000 Ryanair and easyJet combined carried 13 million customers, compared with more than 100 million now. “It is a consequence of their size and scale in the market,” said John Strickland, an aviation consultant. “Wherever they introduce capacity they fill it. They could not do that and sustain their passenger numbers if they were delivering a service that was unsatisfactory. If anything, it shows that, proportionately, their customers are pretty happy.”
The two airlines’ no-frills approach was derided by rivals more than a decade ago but it has transformed short-haul air travel, forcing conventional carriers to cut fares and in some cases drop their business-class cabins or abandon free food.
EasyJet, which carried more than 29 million passengers in and out of the UK last year, said the figures showed that it received one complaint per 40,000 passengers. “We take every complaint seriously, but passengers are voting with their feet,” said an easyJet spokesman.
Ryanair, now the largest short-haul airline in Europe with more than 60 million passengers per year, said the AUC statistics showed that Ryanair received fewer complaints per passenger than easyJet and British Airways. BA came third in the AUC list with 528 complaints.
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Food on BA flights during strikes will leave passengers cold
Mar 12th
Lack of staff means only those in first class will be served hot meals
BA passengers who are lucky enough to get on a flight during the cabin crew strike face a cold meal or, if they happen to be Jewish or Muslim, no meal at all.
BA said it will only be able to serve hot meals to customers in first class on strike-affected flights during a three-day walkout beginning on 20 March, and then a four-day stoppage from 27 March. The remaining passengers will have to make do with cold meals such as salmon salad and chicken breast on a bed of noodles.
However, customers requesting one of BA’s 10 special meals will have to bring their own food onboard. BA offers a wide range of special meals, including Hindu, kosher, halal and Jain dishes, but only baby meals will be available.
BA’s website said: “If you have special requirements that cannot be satisfied by making your own arrangements on the ground, you can bring your own food onboard as long as you stay within your permitted hand baggage allowances.”
A BA spokesperson said the meal restrictions only applied to Heathrow flights and short-haul operations from Gatwick that are directly affected by the strike, and will offer limited schedules staffed by temporary crew.
For instance, a Boeing 747 service normally uses 14 cabin crew but during the strike it will be operated with 12 flight attendants. As a result, crew will be unable to heat up inflight meals before serving them.
“By changing the onboard service routine we are able to meet minimum Civil Aviation Authority standards,” said a BA spokesman.
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Food on BA flights during strikes will leave passengers cold
Mar 12th
Lack of staff means only those in first class will be served hot meals
BA passengers who are lucky enough to get on a flight during the cabin crew strike face a cold meal or, if they happen to be Jewish or Muslim, no meal at all.
BA said it will only be able to serve hot meals to customers in first class on strike-affected flights during a three-day walkout beginning on 20 March, and then a four-day stoppage from 27 March. The remaining passengers will have to make do with cold meals such as salmon salad and chicken breast on a bed of noodles.
However, customers requesting one of BA’s 10 special meals will have to bring their own food onboard. BA offers a wide range of special meals, including Hindu, kosher, halal and Jain dishes, but only baby meals will be available.
BA’s website said: “If you have special requirements that cannot be satisfied by making your own arrangements on the ground, you can bring your own food onboard as long as you stay within your permitted hand baggage allowances.”
A BA spokesperson said the meal restrictions only applied to Heathrow flights and short-haul operations from Gatwick that are directly affected by the strike, and will offer limited schedules staffed by temporary crew.
For instance, a Boeing 747 service normally uses 14 cabin crew but during the strike it will be operated with 12 flight attendants. As a result, crew will be unable to heat up inflight meals before serving them.
“By changing the onboard service routine we are able to meet minimum Civil Aviation Authority standards,” said a BA spokesman.
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Food on BA flights during strikes will leave passengers cold
Mar 12th
Lack of staff means only those in first class will be served hot meals
BA passengers who are lucky enough to get on a flight during the cabin crew strike face a cold meal or, if they happen to be Jewish or Muslim, no meal at all.
BA said it will only be able to serve hot meals to customers in first class on strike-affected flights during a three-day walkout beginning on 20 March, and then a four-day stoppage from 27 March. The remaining passengers will have to make do with cold meals such as salmon salad and chicken breast on a bed of noodles.
However, customers requesting one of BA’s 10 special meals will have to bring their own food onboard. BA offers a wide range of special meals, including Hindu, kosher, halal and Jain dishes, but only baby meals will be available.
BA’s website said: “If you have special requirements that cannot be satisfied by making your own arrangements on the ground, you can bring your own food onboard as long as you stay within your permitted hand baggage allowances.”
A BA spokesperson said the meal restrictions only applied to Heathrow flights and short-haul operations from Gatwick that are directly affected by the strike, and will offer limited schedules staffed by temporary crew.
For instance, a Boeing 747 service normally uses 14 cabin crew but during the strike it will be operated with 12 flight attendants. As a result, crew will be unable to heat up inflight meals before serving them.
“By changing the onboard service routine we are able to meet minimum Civil Aviation Authority standards,” said a BA spokesman.
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Food on BA flights during strikes will leave passengers cold
Mar 12th
Lack of staff means only those in first class will be served hot meals
BA passengers who are lucky enough to get on a flight during the cabin crew strike face a cold meal or, if they happen to be Jewish or Muslim, no meal at all.
BA said it will only be able to serve hot meals to customers in first class on strike-affected flights during a three-day walkout beginning on 20 March, and then a four-day stoppage from 27 March. The remaining passengers will have to make do with cold meals such as salmon salad and chicken breast on a bed of noodles.
However, customers requesting one of BA’s 10 special meals will have to bring their own food onboard. BA offers a wide range of special meals, including Hindu, kosher, halal and Jain dishes, but only baby meals will be available.
BA’s website said: “If you have special requirements that cannot be satisfied by making your own arrangements on the ground, you can bring your own food onboard as long as you stay within your permitted hand baggage allowances.”
A BA spokesperson said the meal restrictions only applied to Heathrow flights and short-haul operations from Gatwick that are directly affected by the strike, and will offer limited schedules staffed by temporary crew.
For instance, a Boeing 747 service normally uses 14 cabin crew but during the strike it will be operated with 12 flight attendants. As a result, crew will be unable to heat up inflight meals before serving them.
“By changing the onboard service routine we are able to meet minimum Civil Aviation Authority standards,” said a BA spokesman.
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British Airways strike: Passengers face seven days of walkouts
Mar 12th
More than half a million travellers to be hit by successive weekend walkouts, with the first beginning on 27 March
More than half a million British Airways passengers face strike disruption this month after the Unite trade union announced walkouts over two consecutive weekends, prompting BA to withdraw a last-ditch peace offer.
Unite has called a series of strikes by up to 12,000 flight attendants, beginning with a three-day walkout on 20 March and then a four-day stoppage from 27 March.
Brief hopes of a reprieve for the 525,000 passengers affected by the strike action were extinguished this afternoon when the BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, withdrew a compromise offer after hearing that Unite had set dates for the first cabin crew strike in 13 years.
BA said the offer, which included a partial repeal of staffing cuts, was conditional on Unite not setting strike dates.
Walsh told the BBC that the two sides were “not close at all” to reaching an agreement and described Unite’s counter-offer of a 2.6% pay cut for staff as “morally wrong”. He said passengers already booked on to flights from 19 March to 31 March could apply for a refund or reschedule their journeys.
A BA spokesperson said: “Our offer to Unite was conditional on the union not naming strike dates. Because strike dates have been announced, Unite has invalidated the offer. It is no longer on the table.”
BA’s move means strikes are certain to go ahead next Friday unless the tentative lines of communication between both sides, described as “slender” by one source close to the talks, yield a new compromise.
This morning Unite said it would put the BA proposal out to a consultative ballot with the result due next Wednesday. However, the simultaneous announcement of strike dates angered BA, which said it had offered Unite an extension to its strike mandate.
Speaking before BA’s move, Len McCluskey, Unite’s chief negotiator and assistant general secretary, said he was willing to keep talking. “There are no negotiations [planned] but of course we remain open to meeting with BA anytime, anywhere.”
The two sides are haggling over a £62.5m target for cost savings in the annual cabin crew budget, which BA has achieved by unilaterally cutting staffing levels on flights by at least one person. This followed a voluntary redundancy programme that saw 1,100 flight attendants leave the company. Unite wants the majority of those positions reinstated and has offered a 2.6% pay cut this year to help fund the move.
The industrial action has been timed to cause maximum disruption to BA, with the airline facing a struggle to reinstate a normal timetable between strikes.
BA normally carries about 75,000 passengers a day on 650 services. Walsh has said he hopes to operate a substantial proportion of the airline’s Heathrow airport long-haul operations and a good number of short-haul flights during the strikes.
The airline has pledged to break the strike with 1,000 volunteer flight attendants drawn from the ranks of its non-cabin-crew workforce, and is preparing to hire 23 aeroplanes complete with their own trained crew.
BA has said it will operate its entire schedule from London City airport during the industrial action and has claimed more than two-thirds of its Gatwick-based crews will work normally.
Informal channels of communication are still open between BA and Unite via the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Brendan Barber.
According to BA’s withdrawn offer, the airline was willing partially to repeal the staffing cuts at the heart of the dispute and would consider putting around 184 cabin crew positions back on its 239-plane fleet. However, Unite wants 700 positions returned to BA aircraft and has proposed about £60m worth of cost savings to fund the proposal. BA says the figures are significantly short of its cost-cutting target.
Unite is also threatening to hold a consultative ballot over proposed changes to baggage handlers’ contracts. If union members vote against BA’s proposals an industrial action ballot will be held, although that move is several weeks away.
Unite argues it has been bypassed by BA despite holding talks about the baggage handler contracts. Steve Turner, the Unite national officer for civil aviation, said: “It is hugely concerning that BA feel that management by imposition is their preferred approach. Very soon no worker at the airline will feel that either their job or their terms and conditions are safe. This instability cannot be healthy for the airline.”
A BA spokesman said: “We are consulting with our ground-handling staff at Heathrow about potential changes to improve the way in which we work. Any talk of a ballot for industrial action is speculative and premature.”
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BA union set to announce strike dates
Mar 12th
Unite expected to announce British Airways strike over cabin crew staff cuts
• How would the strike affect you?
The Unite trade union is set to announce strike dates by British Airways (BA) cabin crew this morning, with a walkout possible as soon as next Friday.
Unite is expected to give an update on stalled negotiations at a press conference at 11am. It is also likely to announce a second front in the BA dispute by warning the airline that it must withdraw proposed changes to working conditions for baggage handlers or face an immediate consultative ballot.
Following an 81% vote in favour of strike action by Unite-affiliated cabin crew, the union must stage a walkout by 22 March and has to provide BA with seven days’ notice. Because Unite has already ruled out striking over the Easter holidays, next weekend is now looming as a likely strike date. Officials from Unite and its cabin crew branch, Bassa, debated strike lengths and dates in a long meeting yesterday.
A walkout by nearly 12,000 cabin crew is likely to bring widespread disruption to BA’s 650 daily services. However, the airline has pledged to break the strike with 1,000 volunteer flight attendants drawn from the ranks of its non-cabin crew workforce, and is preparing to hire 23 airplanes, complete with their own trained crew.
The BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, said he hoped to operate a substantial proportion of the airline’s Heathrow airport long-haul operations and a good number of short-haul flights.
BA has said it will operate its entire schedule from London City airport during the expected strike and has claimed more than two-thirds of its Gatwick-based crews will work normally.
Informal channels of communication are still open between BA and Unite via the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Brendan Barber. However, sources close to the talks said there had been little movement over the past 24 hours.
It is understood that BA is willing to partially repeal the staffing cuts at the heart of the dispute and is considering putting around 184 cabin crew positions back on its 239-plane fleet. However, Unite wants 700 positions returned to BA aircraft and has proposed around £60m worth of cost savings to fund the proposal. BA has disputed those figures, saying they are significantly short of its cost-cutting target.
Unite is also threatening to hold a consultative ballot over proposed changes to baggage handlers’ contracts. If union members vote against BA’s proposals an industrial action ballot will be held, although that move is several weeks away.
Unite argues that it has been bypassed by BA, despite holding talks about the baggage handler contracts.
Steve Turner, the Unite national officer for civil aviation, said: “It is hugely concerning that BA feel that management by imposition is their preferred approach. Very soon, no worker at the airline will feel that either their job or their terms and conditions are safe. This instability cannot be healthy for the airline.”
A BA spokesman said: “We are consulting with our ground-handling staff at Heathrow about potential changes to improve the way in which we work. Any talk of a ballot for industrial action is speculative and premature.”
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Days of building intercity roads are over, says transport secretary Andrew Adonis, as government announces network of 250mph trains to be completed by 2026
Mar 11th
£30bn high-speed rail plan signals end of the road for motorways
The government signalled the end of intercity motorway building today as it announced plans for a £30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026.
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said the motorway network had reached its limit and the burden of ferrying millions more people between cities would instead be taken by fleets of trains travelling at up to 250mph. Work on the first phase linking the capital and England’s second city could begin in 2017 after a formal public consultation, Adonis said.
Having pledged to eliminate demand for domestic air travel with ultra-fast trains, the transport secretary took on motorways in a 152-page “command paper”. He said: “I do not envisage building another generation of intercity motorways.”
The last new motorway, the M40, opened in 1991 and the government’s strategy now is to widen the UK’s major road arteries or to make hard shoulders into new lanes. The news was attacked by a motoring thinktank, which warned the government not to sideline roads when they account for more than nine out of 10 UK passenger journeys, against 7% for rail. “It is not enough to deal with growing demand,” said Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation. “What is the government going to do instead? If it does nothing, inter-urban congestion will just get worse.”
Under the high-speed rail alternative, London and Birmingham will be linked by a route carrying 18 trains an hour in each direction, with every one carrying up to 1,100 passengers. Journeys will be slashed from 84 minutes to 49 on a line originating at London’s Euston. At Old Oak Common in west London an interchange with the Crossrail service, due to be completed in 2017, will take passengers to Heathrow.
Controversially, the line will then run through the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, past picturesque villages such as Wendover, partly following the A413 road and the Chiltern rail line before joining the track-bed of the former Great Central Railway. Before entering central Birmingham there will be a stop near its airport, which will be 31 minutes from Old Oak Common. There will be a new terminal at Curzon Street in Birmingham centre but the main body of the line will sweep through the Trent valley to join existing tracks north of Lichfield, where journeys will continue to Manchester and Scotland at conventional speeds.
Adonis said it would lead to the demolition of just 440 houses, against 700 for the planned third runway at Heathrow.
The transport secretary also unveiled the blueprint for a wider network, with a Y-shaped route splitting off from Birmingham to go westwards to Manchester and eastwards to Sheffield and Leeds. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would come down from about two hours 10 minutes to 75 minutes. However, the document makes no formal provision for a direct route to Scotland and Newcastle and time savings from London to Scotland’s major cities are less impressive, falling from four-and-a-half hours to three-and-a-half hours.
Acknowledging Tory objections over the Heathrow proposal, Adonis said the case for a station at the airport would be examined by the former Tory transport secretary Lord Mawhinney. The Tories have pledged to build a high-speed network instead of a third runway at Heathrow, and to start construction in 2015.
Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said: “In leaving out Heathrow and setting out plans that give no firm guarantees north of the Midlands, Labour’s plans are flawed both by lack of ambition and undermined by their inability to grasp the basic truth that high-speed rail should be an alternative to a third runway, not an addition to it.”
The London-to-Birmingham phase will cost up to £17.4bn, with the full 335-mile network costing £30bn. Adonis said he expected the financing to be “state-led”, costing about £2bn a year. The environmental benefits will be negligible, however, as the Department for Transport admitted that the London-to-Birmingham route will be carbon neutral.
Green groups also warned that the proposals must not squeeze funding from the conventional rail network. Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport, said:”The danger is that a high-speed line will suck money out of the current transport network. The last thing people want is service cuts, higher fares and more potholes, while the executive classes are treated to gleaming new high-speed trains.”
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Adonis unveils £30bn high-speed rail plans
Mar 11th
Minister says building work on 250mph route cutting journey times between London and Birmingham could begin in 2017
The government today unveiled plans for a £30bn high-speed rail network, with the first phase between London and Birmingham opening in 2026.
Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said building work on the 250mph route could begin in 2017 once a formal public consultation has been completed.
The route linking the capital and England’s second city, which will cut journey times from 84 minutes to 49 minutes, will originate at London Euston and pass through Old Oak Common, in west London, where a Crossrail interchange will transport passengers to Heathrow airport.
Controversially, the line will then run through the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire, past picturesque villages such as Wendover, before arriving at an intermediate stop near Birmingham airport. There will be a new terminal in Birmingham city centre, and the main body of the line will sweep through the Trent valley to join existing tracks north of Lichfield, where journeys will continue to Manchester and Scotland at conventional speeds.
“The time has come for Britain to plan seriously for high-speed rail between our major cities,” said Adonis. “The high-speed line from London to the Channel Tunnel has been a clear success, and many European and Asian countries now have extensive and successful high-speed networks. I believe high-speed rail has a big part to play in Britain’s future.”
In a nod to Tory objections over the Heathrow proposal, Adonis said the case for a station would be examined by the former Tory transport secretary Lord Mawhinney. “A complex decision of this nature should not be taken in a knee-jerk fashion but after a full analysis of the facts and opinions,” Adonis said.
The first phase will cost up to £17.4bn for 128 miles of track from London to the west Midlands, with the full 330-mile network costing £30bn.
The transport secretary also unveiled the blueprint for a wider network, with a Y-shaped route splitting off from Birmingham to go eastwards to Manchester and westwards to Sheffield and Leeds. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would come down from about two hours 10 minutes to 75 minutes when the new network is in place.
Formal planning for the route from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds will be completed next summer, with a consultation to follow in 2012. The route to Scotland would be completed on existing lines under the current proposal, even when the Manchester and Leeds sections are completed.
Despite the Mawhinney gesure, the Conservatives attacked the detailed proposal. The Tories have pledged to build a high-speed network instead of a third runway at Heathrow, and to start construction in 2015.
Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Labour have betrayed the vision we set out three years ago for [high-speed rail]. In leaving out Heathrow and setting out plans that give no firm guarantees north of the Midlands, Labour’s plans are flawed both by lack of ambition and undermined by their inability to grasp the basic truth that high-speed rail should be an alternative to a third runway, not an addition to it.”
The government-backed company that drew up the plans, HS2, believes there is no business case for a direct link to Heathrow airport and some industry experts argue that the Old Oak Common interchange provides an equally good link.
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Rail maintenance workers vote to strike
Mar 11th
• RMT union refuses to rule out Easter national walkout
• Talks continuing over BA cabin crew strike threat
The prospect of a national rail strike over Easter loomed larger this morning after maintenance workers voted in favour of a walkout.
The RMT union refused to rule out a bank holiday strike by thousands of Network Rail staff, and they could be joined by 5,500 signal workers whose ballot result is announced next week.
Meanwhile, a source close to the fraught peace talks between British Airways and the Unite union said informal discussions over averting a cabin crew walkout were continuing, with the possibility that strike dates would not be announced today. A source close to Bassa, Unite’s cabin crew branch, said it had no wish to disrupt BA passengers.
Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, left open the option of an Easter national rail walkout this morning and called on Network Rail to hold further talks over changes to working practices. “It could well be that both the signal workers and maintenance workers take action together,” he told Sky News.
Network Rail believes it can withstand a maintenance strike for at least a week, with some branch line closures, before services are disrupted by safety measures such as speed restrictions. However, the company admitted this week that a signallers’ strike could bring the busiest sections of the network to a halt because the main signalling centres, which employ around 3,000 people, would be unstaffed.
Crow said the vote, with 77% in favour on a turnout of 65%, reflected concerns over rail safety after Network Rail’s decision to restructure its maintenance division. The Network Rail proposals include 1,500 redundancies, the majority voluntary.
“RMT members were faced with a stark choice in this ballot. They could either sit back and wait for these cash-led maintenance cuts to lead to another major disaster on Britain’s railways or they could vote to take action to stop the attack on rail safety. They have overwhelmingly voted to take action,” said Crow.
Network Rail, which has overseen a significant increase in rail passenger safety since taking over from Railtrack in 2002, has denied vehemently that the new regime could see a return to the dark days of the Hatfield crash in 2000, in which four people died, and the Potters Bar accident in 2002, which claimed the lives of seven people.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “The way the railway is maintained and operated needs to change. Work practices that date back to the steam age should no longer have a place on a modern railway.
“We cannot allow the unions to hold this country to ransom. Negotiation is the only way this dispute will be settled, and the sooner we get around the table the better for everyone.”
Unite and Bassa officials met to discuss the next steps in the industrial dispute with BA that is close to escalating into a walkout, after a deadline to secure a deal was missed yesterday evening. The general secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, is acting as an intermediary in the talks with BA.
The Bassa source said it had “absolutely no wish” to trigger a strike and claimed that the two sides were £10m apart in agreeing on cost-saving proposals. Unite and Bassa have offered a one-off 2.6% pay cut in talks, but BA says the proposals are still “significantly short” of its £60m cost-saving target.
In a direct appeal to Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, the source said: “We are taking this opportunity to ask him to reconsider the formal offer of cuts we have made and to accept the sacrifices that we and our members are willing to make in order to help British Airways to protect on board service levels for its customers, and so prevent industrial action.
“What company in their right mind would refuse the offer of a pay cut from its own staff to protect the health, safety and service offered to its customers? Before ordinary peoples travel plans are unnecessarily inconvenienced we hope that common sense will prevail and that our offer is reconsidered. The deadline for calling industrial action is very close. Mr Walsh should not squander that time.”
A BA spokeswoman said the airline remained available for talks. One scenario emerging today could see BA lodge a formal offer to Unite that would allow the union to extend its strike mandate while members consider the proposal. Unite must announce strike dates by Monday under rules set down by the 1992 Trade Union Act.
One key sticking point in the BA proposals is that the airline appears to have accepted the partial repeal of staffing cuts but has not gone far enough to satisfy Unite and Bassa. BA is understood to have offered the return of about 184 cabin crew positions, while Unite is seeking around 700. BA unilaterally cut staffing levels on flights by at least one flight attendant last November, after a voluntary redundancy programme.
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