BALPA is to write to Sir Michael Bishop asking what steps he has taken as part of selling his controlling interest in bmi to make sure his hard working and loyal staff are protected. Sir Michael’s decision to sell his shares to Lufthansa may have “put the cat among the pigeons” at Heathrow, but BALPA’s interest is to make sure that the bmi, bmi baby and bmi regional members who have worked to make the airline a success are protected and their wide experience and skills not passed over. Jim McAuslan, BALPA General Secretary, said “Sir Michael has some explaining to do”

Alongside this BALPA is putting a team together, including negotiators experienced in mergers and acquisitions and legal experts, to ensure there is the best support available to protect members’ jobs, terms and conditions.

BALPA has already studied the experience of Lufthansa’s purchase of Swiss, which saw strategic alignment but with the airline keeping a free standing brand. The feedback from Swiss pilot representatives has been positive about the Lufthansa approach when considering the performance of Swiss at that time.

BALPA has also opened lines of communications with Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), the pilot union for Lufthansa Flightcrew with whom BALPA enjoys good and well established links. BALPA and VC are also able to draw on a growing amount of experience not only with the acquisition of Swiss but also the mergers between Air France and KLM and the ongoing talks between BA and Iberia. BALPA wants to work with VC to establish the intentions of Lufthansa and to stress the huge benefits that can come from this change of ownership, if properly handled.

Jim McAuslan said; “the shape of airline ownership is changing and we have learned a lot about how management can do it well, and how it can be done badly. BALPA aims to make this change a success for the new shareholders, for the travelling public and for those who have loyally served bmi and want to do so in the future.”