COMMENT: Mike Platt (Aug 3)

We have had our good times and bad times BA. Mike Platt looks at the current standing of British Airways

Over all too many years, I have had the kind of topsy turvy relationship one would expect between a huge national airline and a TMCTravel Management Company: An agency which manages business travel for a company. man whose top priorities were his clients and his company. Like every powerful market leader, it has been there to shoot down and whinge about and frankly it has on occasions deserved it..... BUT, like one's favourite football team, you can moan but you cannot do without them. I should know as I am a fanatic Fulham fan!

Just look at BA now. Like most of us, it is facing the biggest challenges of its economic life and the vultures are circling. Unfortunately it took perhaps too long to get a man like Willie Walsh in charge and then, when he tried to tell us, the unions and financial institutions the facts of life, few people took a blind bit of notice. Like all great British institutions, we as a nation seem to take some fiendish delight in knocking them down even as the rest of the world looks on in bemusement!

In my very long and detailed understanding and background in airline knowledge, British Airways is either the best of the bunch or close to it in the international pecking chain of global airlines. Its problem is that it is practically hamstrung by competition law, flag carrier status, poor legacy systems and, most of all, arcane staff agreements jealously guarded by unions from a bygone Arthur Scargill like age.

This airline is fighting for its very life, and what are the cabin crew unions doing? They are still trying to hold on to horrendously expensive benefits that frankly should have disappeared in the same era as the miners' strike. Believe me, some of these allowances are ridiculous and totally out of sync with the industry in which they compete. From what I gather, much of the argument is about whether the unions give up these silly benefits for the period of difficulty or forever and BA cannot let this moment pass without getting rid of them for good. The crazy thing is that I believe many of the short haul BA crews are willing to take the changes but it is the militants on long haul that want to maintain the status quo.

In some way I am almost gritting my teeth in saying this but I am going to do it as I think some of you just may agree.

"British Airways is a damn good airline and I prefer to fly with them. It has its faults but it does make me proud that it provides the best schedules, best service and best....well Britishness!"

If you do not agree with me, well tell me. You have the facility to reply. I would be interested to know!