Neha Jain: http://canadianaviationnews.blogspot.com/ 01

1. Ask the traveller: cabin crew strike
Q: My wife and I are booked to go to the UAE at the start of the Easter holidays on British Airways. I have just learnt that cabin crew may strike over this period. BA is saying it plans to run 100 per cent of the long-haul flights from Heathrow. Is this likely? Could it lead to delays at the airport? Should I cancel? Carl Rees

The latest British Airways cabin crew ballot saw union members vote 5-1 in favour of more strikes. The union, Unite, has not yet announced any strike dates; it must give at least one week's notice of action, and any stoppage must begin no later than 25 April. Talks are continuing.

In the event of another strike, the airline aims to fly all long-haul services, including yours. A spokesman for BA says there are "robust and well-rehearsed contingency plans".

BA is relying on the 57 per cent of cabin crew who did not vote in favour of a strike, augmented by more than 1,000 volunteers from elsewhere in the airline, to cover for strikers.

Delays to your trip are unlikely. Indeed, during last year's strikes, by taking out a proportion of flights, industrial action actually accelerated other services by reducing aircraft queues on the ground and in the air.

Cancellation without penalty is not an option at this stage, and – if the airline's confidence is justified – will not be offered. In common with a couple of million other BA passengers holding bookings for April, all you can do is wait and hope. The union has warned opaquely of "weird and wondrous initiatives" that could thwart the airline's plans. But the worst you are likely to experience is a reduced inflight offering, and a gruff old captain spilling coffee in your lap.

BA also says it will operate a normal schedule at Gatwick and London City, and "the majority" of its short-haul, flights from Heathrow.

2. Smuggling cabin crews coin it in

Friday, April 01, 2011

German authorities have uncovered a scandal in which Lufthansa flight crew smuggled scrapped euro coins back from China and cashed them in.
The cabin crews would exchange the coins for notes at the Bundesbank central bank, prosecutors in Frankfurt said.

Six people, four of them of Chinese origin, were arrested after police dawn raids at the Bundesbank and firms in and around Frankfurt, including flag carrier Lufthansa.

They "are suspected of having acquired from one or more sources in China reconstructed 1- and 2-euro coins," the prosecutor's office said. About 29 tonnes of decommissioned coins were exchanged against 6 million euros (HK$66.36 million) in cash between 2007 and last November.

Every year the Bundesbank takes out of circulation hundreds of tonnes of dirty, bent coins, and breaks them into separate metals to be shipped to China.

But the bimetallic coins were reassembled by criminal groups who hired cabin crew to smuggle them back into Germany, prosecutors allege.

3. bmibaby is new at London Stansted with Belfast City route

bmibaby, the low-cost subsidiary of the British airline bmi, launched a new domestic service between Belfast City (BHD) in Northern Ireland and London Stansted (STN). Flights operate 16 times weekly with 148-seat 737-300s. The route was previously operated by Ryanair, but the Irish LCC dropped it at the end of the last summer season. Indirect competition does, however, come from parent bmi’s 39 weekly flights to London Heathrow, flybe’s 27 flights a week to London Gatwick and easyJet’s 18 weekly flights to London Luton. From Belfast International, further indirect competition comes from Aer Lingus’ 28 flights a week and easyJet’s 26 and 25 weekly flights to London Gatwick and London Stansted. This is the first time bmibaby operates to the London area since the airline’s flights from London Gatwick from Cork, Prague and Durham Tees Valley in 2004-2006.

NEHA JAIN

International Airlines Training Expo