Stefan

Bikboks It's not unusual to have ashes on board a flight, either as hand luggage or in the hold. I can't comment on all airlines' policies but as an example this can be found at ba.com: ----------------------------- Cremated remains can be carried on board our flights in your hand baggage or checked baggage. In order to comply with regulations, you will need to carry with you all necessary documentation, including a Certificate of Death issued by a competent authority from the country of departure. You will also need to ensure that the cremated remains are packed in a sealed outer box or case. Please note: If you are carrying cremated remains in your hand baggage, full security procedures will be applied and the sealed box or case will be x-rayed at the airport security point. Cremated remains can also be carried as cargo.

Ah found it http://www.xo-airways.com/ Where's Londres Stanted then????

Ummm.. all looks a bit ..err..vague at the moment - all I can find by searching is a Facebook page, so where are the details of the "London" - Angouleme-Cognac flights that the OP refers to in the post title ?

baypond I guess we are risking straying into either commercial aviation trivia or worse still plane spotter territory, but FWIW: BA have been using Airbuses (?sp.) on the route for a while, certainly since the route moved to LHR last Summer. The seating capacities you are quoting are generic Airbus figures but in reality each customer airline nominates it's own seating configuration when buying a batch of aircraft. Easyjet goes with single class, so probably does indeed have 180 seats, but BA has the Club Europe section upfront, which reduces the total seat number. Typically the larger BA Airbuses used on the LHR-TLS route have 156 seats, and that is further reduced by the fact that at the moment BA aren't selling the centre Club seats to give those Club customers they have got extra elbow room, hence my comment about 140-145 sellable seats..

Um..interesting. Looking at BA.com recently I think they dropped any idea of premium pricing a while ago, I've certainly seen advance fares on the TLS-LHR route for well under £200 return, though I'd agree the suffer from being a pondorous legacy outfit and they're not the best at reacting a short notice and taking advantage of the sort of situation you describe. However to be fair to BA there seems to be a bit of a dichotomy now with the air travelling public... We've got people such as you ( and I) who on occasions have to accept paying three figure sums to travel, and then you have the £1 brigade...and there's not much between. You reach a point where there's no point in dropping the fare any lower, some folk who don't have to travel are utterly commited to their LoCo and won't pay a cent or penny more, even if it means a delay. BTW a small point - I'm not sure about your 180 seat figure..as far as I'm aware in the configurations BA use their biggest Airbuses only have about 140 -145 sellable seats at the moment, not 180, so maybe the "underload" wasn't that bad.

Pierre, Ah I've re-read your original post and see what you mean. Even leaving Passenger Duty to one side there's no reason why the fares out and back should be the same..the fares reflect demand as much, or more than, the costs of operating the flight. You often see evidence of this at a weekend, especially in the Summer. As an example close to my heart the LHR-TLS flight on a Friday night will probably be more expensive than the TLS-LHR flight, simply because there's more demand for seats (weekenders heading for their holiday homes down here) ...OTOH recently this winter it's often been the other way round as the French head up to the UK en-mass on a Friday night/Sat AM to go bargain hunting with their strong euros...

Pierre You asked "Why it is 10 euros more flying to Heathrow" Firstly on a particular day there may be more demand Northbound than Southbound and in addition the UK Airport Passenger Duty loads up the Southbound fare . BTW have we really really settled the issue over BAs TLS flights only going into/out of LHR or am I going to have to join P2 in shouting!!!

Market forces strike again - looks like Ryanair reckons people are now more willing to spend money flying to the Sunshine resorts than to rural France.

Norman..... Ok, at the risk of pushing this topic back to the top, I'll put in my final eurocents worth: You say: "I certainly think that it is inconceivable that people who had voted by such an overwhelming majority for strike action would be forced to work." So Norman, can I ask: Do you think it is acceptable for a Union to knowingly run a flawed ballot for or against Industrial Action? "Yes" or "No" will do for an answer, then we can understand where you're coming from. Also can I ask if you have you taken time read and understand the the complete findings of the Court Case? I know at lot of it may seem like "gibberish" but it really was quite simple. The Union had either by accident or by design run a flawed ballot. Why should it escape sanction? It still has the right, even under the nasty repressive UK law, to run another ballot....and if it's done legally no judge will stand in the way of their right to strike. As for implying BA Cabin crew are some sort of downtrodden workforce living on the breadline....no, they are not - and I know more than a few - do you? They are generally on T&Cs comparable with, and many cases better than other major European airlines, and nobody, absolutely nobody, is forced to work for BA..it's not slavery. That really is all from me. I must fly, I'm off to be exploited, as you put it, and part of my income which will be going to my Union (yes, I'm in one)!

Norman Yes, the judge commented about timing, but you've got to look at the full findings and take those comments in context. Firstly and most importantly: IMHO if the Union (BASSA) had run their ballot properly and in accordance with UK legislation their beloved "right to strike" would have been upheld by the judge and BA's injunction would have been thrown out, Christmas or no Christmas. However: 1. BASSA sent ballot papers out to people who would no longer be employed by BA at the time of any strike - a breach of the legislation. 2. Despite being warned of this by BA, BASSA made no attempt to stop inelligible people casting their votes (they could have printed a warning on the ballot paper, sent out a mass text message to their members, e-mailed their members..but they chose not to). 3. It was alledged that the BASSA chairperson used the Union website to positively encourage someone who was retiring and had queried this very matter to go ahead and vote anyway, despite being inelligible... Not suprisingly the judge decided BASSA had run a flawed ballot. She now had to consider the "balance of convenience": Either she could have decided to give BASSA the benefit of the doubt, and rule that the errors in the balloting didn't effect the final outcome, or she could be mindful that the law in the UK is supposed to consider the interests of everybody, not just the unions, and contemplate the effect of a Christmas strike on the traveling public and BA. As we know the judge ended up deciding that the "balance of convenience" for the majority of people was best served by allowing BA's injunction. Of course I suspect the French perspective would be somewhat different and would probably be: never mind the fact we ran a slipshod ballot, our right to strike is paramount and the fact that over 500,000 people's Christmas holiday plans are in tatters isn't our fault. Just to emphasise the point again : If BASSA had run their ballot properly they would almost certainly have had their "right to strike" upheld, regardless of the dates. (By the way, if you search out the judge's profile ( Mrs Justice Cox) you'll see she has a very strong background in Human Rights and Humanitarian issues..she's certainly not a Right Wing hanging judge or a lacky of the Cameronian-Borisite faction).

Honestly Benjamin, there's no "probably" about it..... I guess in the days when long haul travel was rare it was quite a "tremendous perk", but now that every major tour operator sends passengers by their tens of thousands to four corners of the globe it's become a pretty run of the mill thing to do. I know many airline crew with familes avoid staff travel and book packages anyway, because of the uncertainty involved with standby travel.

Benjamin Um, the "no personal expense to either of them" comment sounds a bit like the stuff the papers were putting out....I really, really, really doubt that is correct. I'm not going to go into to much detail about these "perks" but few if any staff tickets are "freebies" and in any case somebody will have paid at the very least Airport Passenger Duty on tickets. FWIW even on short haul around Europe the "perk" of flying as staff with BA often costs more than buying a ticket on a LoCo !!!!!! I would however agree there's a lot of of fiddling whilst Rome burns going on...

NormanH Fine in theory, but the Union has got to ensure the balloting procedure is carried out correctly. I think when/if you see full details of what came out in Court, copied below, you might understand why the judge made the decision to grant the injunction. In a nutshell the judge was of the opinion that despite being warned by BA the Union knowingly allowed people to vote who would have left the Company by the time of the strike, made no efforts to warn such individuals not to vote and in at least one case actively encouraged such people to vote via comments on their website. ------------------------------------------------ Quote: British Airways Plc v Unite the Union Queen's Bench Division 17 December 2009 Case Digest Summary: Interim injunctions; Industrial action; Industrial action against airlines over Christmas period; Non-compliance with statutory requirements for ballots; Balance of convenience Abstract: The applicant airline (BA) applied for an interim injunction to restrain the respondent trade union (Unite) from proceeding with industrial action based on the result of a ballot. BA had embarked on a cost-cutting and efficiency exercise and had sought to reduce its cabin crew headcount. Litigation ensued, but in advance of the trial Unite called for a 12-day strike over the Christmas period. Notice of intention to ballot cabin crew for the strike, the notice of the results and notice of industrial action was provided to BA. BA claimed that Unite had not complied with the requirements for a ballot under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 s.227 , s226A and s.234A . According to BA, Unite included in the balloting constituency a significant number of volunteers for redundancy who were known by it to be leaving BA's employment by the relevant date; in its notice of ballot Unite failed to provide accurate figures with regard to the total numbers of employees that it reasonably believed would be entitled to vote in the ballot; and in its notice of industrial action it had failed to provide accurate figures with regard to those employees who might be induced to take part in the strike. Unite relied on s.232(b) of the Act, claiming that any failure to comply with statutory requirements was accidental. Held: (1) There were breaches of technical statutory requirements by Unite. Unite could not rely on the defence under s.232(b) of the Act, and nor could it say that it had taken such steps as were reasonably practicable for the purposes of s.227, s226A and s.234A. Unite was in possession of information concerning employees who had volunteered for redundancy. In the light of that information it was aware, or ought to have been aware, that the figures provided to BA included those who opted for voluntary redundancy and thus included Unite's members who were not entitled to vote. It was practicable and reasonable to enquire as to which members were leaving BA's employment. Unite had never issued instructions to members about not voting if they were leaving BA's employment by the relevant date, despite having had opportunities to do so. Further, there was insufficient evidence that any inaccuracy in the information provided was due to intransigency on BA's part. Evidence showed that Unite was clearly on notice that its figures were inaccurate and that the balloting process was flawed. (2) The balance of convenience lay in favour of granting the injunction sought by BA. Damages were not an adequate remedy for BA and the a strike over the 12 days of Christmas was fundamentally more damaging to BA and the wider public than a strike taking place at almost any other time of the year. Application granted.

"Perhaps they will see sense and realise that at some point the good times have to end" At the risk of drifting the thread towards the political...Unfortunately many of the Cabin Crew seem to rely solely for the aformentioned blog for their information and the Union activists active on that site are still whipping things up this morning. I wouldn't rely on a lot of them seeing anything other than the Union's point of view. ( and no, I'm not BA Cabin crew but I know a few of the more enlightened ones...).

Russethouse "And that's going to make them turn up for work, how" It's the UK - If they don't turn up for work on the 22nd without very good reason they can, correction, will be sacked, instantly, for breach of contract. In all honesty I think few off them had the stomach for a 12 day strike anyway.

Gardian I reckon it's 50/50, there have been queries over the behaviour of one or two of the Union Reps, but whatever happend it probably wasn't enough to effect the outcome of the ballot...we'll soon find out what the judge thinks.

The oft quoted (by the media) CAA figures for "pay" are usually for total employee costs, rather than earnings, so whilst similar grades at BA will earn more than their Virgin counterparts I doubt it's consistently twice as much ( but I stand to be corrected as always). FWIW the BA strike isn't really about pay, it's about a whole host of other issues that have been bubbling under for a long, long time......but I'd agree entirely that the BA Cabin Crew would have been wiser to keep their heads down in the current climate ...

Well the only advice I can think of is that if you are going to reschedule, either with BA on a non-strike date, or with another carrier, you need to do it ASAP.

As far as I understand it if the medication is in solid form you should be OK, just make sure the medicine /pill container doesn't contravene the 100ml limit. As for the marzipan being confiscated story...yep, I can see that a lump of marzipan or indeed anything of similar consistency in hand luggage might well raise a few eyebrows.

Yep, given the seeming love of longterm contracts here in France I wonder if the local authorites at Poitiers thought that they'd got some sort of deal for life? There seems to be a Ryanair service to just about every small airport in France - Mr O'Leary is now in a perfect position to play one off against another.

Lou FWIW from Toulouse it's Easyjet to LGW, B.A. to LHR.

Bubbles/Pickles "The staff at Nimes airport won't let you take an empty bottle through. You would think that they ought to know the rules, wouldn't you? " Moot point, but it sounds like the staff at Nimes do indeed know the ( daft) rules - under the current regulations you are not allowed to take any liquids container with a volume of greater than 100 ml "airside", even if it is only part full or even completely empty.

To be fair (yawn)....... For reasons various, it's not just FR, many airlines have a policy of not mentioning or apologising for delays in after landing Cabin Announcements.... Wether the Captain feels he/she ought to make such an apology is another matter.

"If you want that, fly BA and pay their prices" Which at the moment can be cheaper than FR.....but you won't get 5* service and meals with them either......

Ripoff? In all honesty probably just the genuine cost of the flight if it does include all the taxes...