british airways cabin crew appreciation

So much for getting back in the habit of blogging.

Something wonderful just happened which I feel compelled to share with the world:

I booked my flight home a bit less than a year ago through British Airways. BA caps the amount of time in advance it is possible to book flights, so the arbitrary date I chose was June 9. The program I run (Boneh) ends June 10, and I'm staying in Israel for several weeks after that to be a delegate at the World Zionist Congress. Knowing this, I obviously should have chosen a new flight with BA several months ago. But I didn't do anything about this until last week.

In addition to the $250 change of flight fee (which I knew about), BA requires passengers to pay the difference in the price of the flight (which I thought would be negligible). When I called BA last week, I found out that flights from Israel to the US can be far more expensive in mid July than mid June, to the tune of $300 or more (for a total of $550 or more). I refused to book a new flight last week, hoping that the $300 would be reduced a bit closer to June 9.

Today I checked in on my flight. The BA website announced apologetically that there is a cabin crew strike scheduled for some days in late May and early June, including June 9, and that all passengers who had flights on those days can reschedule for free.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my support for Unite, a union that represents many faithful members of the cabin crews of British Airways. BA wants to make drastic cuts to its workforce, impose a two-year wage freeze, and introduce a second tier workforce. This is an outrage, and I for one stand in solidarity with the workers of Unite.