Subject: British Airways onboard catering update
From: British Airways Executive Club <BA@BritishAirways.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 16:48:45 +0100 (BST)
Dear Mr Muffett,
As you are a valued customer to British Airways, I would like to provide you with an update on the current problems we are experiencing with our onboard catering, due to unofficial industrial action by our Heathrow catering supplier Gate Gourmet.
Although British Airways services into and out of London Heathrow continue to operate as normal, we have limited onboard catering. There will be some catering provided at the airport prior to departure, however, we are continuing to advise passengers, especially those with special dietary requirements, to eat before arriving at the airport.
British Airways services to and from London Gatwick and UK regional services that do not connect with London Heathrow have not been affected and are operating as normal with a full catering service.
We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this situation may cause our passengers and would like to assure you that we are doing all possible to return to the high service standards you have come to expect from us.
For more information please visit [ba.com]
Yours sincerely,
Martin George Commercial Director, British Airways
This email is intended solely for the addressee(s) and the information it contains is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient (a) please delete this email and inform the sender as soon as possible, and (b) any copying, distribution or other action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance upon it is prohibited and may be unlawful.
British Airways and My Part in its Downfall …
Comments
10 responses to “British Airways and My Part in its Downfall …”
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re: British Airways and My Part in its Downfall …
Alec, I know this is pedantic, but you probably shouldn’t have pasted this into a blog, given how the last paragraph reads.
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ah, but…
My take on the last paragraph:
<This email is intended solely for the addressee(s) and the information it contains is confidential.>
That’s me, I am the addressee, and what I choose to do with supposedly confidential informaiton is my business; I am not paid by BA to maintain their confidences, I don’t work for them, and I try to minimise the amount of time I fly on any aircraft at all, let alone theirs, so there’s no great loss on my part.
It continues:
<If you are not the intended recipient>
ie: the following does not apply to me…
<(a) please delete this email and inform the sender as soon as possible, and (b) any copying, distribution or other action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance upon it is prohibited and may be unlawful.>
OK, so that does not apply to me, irrespective of whether I gave it any credence which I don’t.
And thus I have no qualms about posting it
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re: British Airways and My Part in its Downfall …
Hmm.. it’s not as funny as “Spike Milligan: Hitler and my part in his downfall.”
Still, the e-mail does read in a gut wrenching (as in “multi-coloured yawn”) way. The weazel wording itself would make me never want to purchase services from them ever again irrespective of the context.
Still, knowing the background to this, i can see that BA are being caught in the middle of a problem not of their making as I’ve read that in June they offered to pay the food contractor more so that Gate Gourmet could (a) keep solvent, and (b) pay their staff what they were asking for. (Of course, this is not BA being altruistic, but trying to protect their own position.) Gate Gourmet rejected BA’s offer.
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Copright ?
Hmm, but does that get you out of the fact that it’s still their copyright ?
cheers! Chris
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re: Copright ?
“fair use” with attribution.
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For the Tanzanian version, see:
http http://www.tzuk.net/index.php?option=com_npnews&func=fullpage&news_id=454
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re: Copright ?
IIRC “fair use” is an American term, I believe the UK defence is called “fair dealing”.
My understanding was that fair dealing required the piece to have been published to the public (e.g. a book) and that a private communication doesn’t count for that. Also I thought you are only allowed to quote a section of it under fair use, and not the whole thing..
http://www.swarb.co.uk/lawb/ipFairUse.shtml
and
copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p09_fair_use
IANAL..!
Chris (in a country where it’s illegal to transfer a CD you’ve bought onto an iPod)
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Welcome to the Law.
Well:
1) I didn’t publish quite the entire thing, merely a selection from it including the disclaimer which I feel and believe to be meaningless drivel; the matter of “the whole of it” is arguable and up to a judge. Had I published every single one of a number of e-mails then there might be some manner of protest regarding re-use of material under copyright to my supposed benefit – and remember that *that* is what you started trying to argue here, not contract law. Being such a short, single e-mail it was necessary to quote it substantially if I was to quote it at all. Hence my the content of my posting.
2) Since it was mailed to many thousand people and is cited verbatim in the press elsewhere it can hardly be called a private communication, regardless of the above.
3) As explained previously I do not feel bound to maintain the privacy of BA or anyone else except my employers and/or anyone else with whom I contract and only then when given to communicate explicitly on that basis.
Regarding the original e-mail: of the two points I wished to raise in the blog entry – the fact of the strike status which I find mildly irksome, and the attached codicil which I find to be charming and believe to be pointless – I am amused to discover that I was correct in my surmise that correspondents would fret more about the latter than the former.
You big bunch of scaredy-cat, toe-the-imaginary-line-in-fear geeky wusses, you.
In analysis: I believe that no financial measurable benefit/disbenefit has occured to either party, and thus it is extremely unlikely that anyone gives a toss. I believe that it is not worth getting het-up about, and that this latter in my view makes the codicil or disclaimer even more pointless, and people’s fretting about it more indicative of a deeper societal problem.
The law is analogue, not binary, and is mostly set up to either inhibit certain behaviour (eg: murder), bolster the resources of the state (eg: taxes) or provide redress in case of loss (eg: alimony, accidents, etc) – and the latter usually (but not always) is pursued pragmatically, and with an eye on cost-benefit.
Make a fuss about me posting this? Cui bono?
Computer geeks (on the other hand) tend to view the law as an instruction set, and it ain’t so. See the section on the ways-and-means act in http://www.crypticide.com/dropsafe/articles/politics/post20050309230941.html – anyone who thinks that law *is* binary should spend some time examining the issues that surround “plea-bargaining”.
Regarding speech in any form: prettymuch every time someone opens their mouth to comment upon something else, they are risking being sued; people should consider for themselves how much they want to live without exposing themselves to risk.
And no, I am not a lawyer either.
I am, however, not easily cowed in the face of that which I consider to be baseless, pointless, inapplicable or unenforcable admonishments that are handed down by a non-judicial, non-governmental actor.
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re: Welcome to the Law.
Woah there, I think you’re overreacting.. 🙂
It’s not at all obvious from the posting that it’s a quote, to me (and presumably Seamus given what he wrote) it looked very much like an entire email.
I’m well aware that the law is not binary, what I’ve read seems to say that this is a very murky area of the law where a lot is based on previous cases.
I also wasn’t intending to come across as telling you off, it was just intended as a discussion.
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re: Welcome to the Law.
S’right mate, you know that by and large I don’t engage in anything without assessing risks and hedging as many of them to the greatest extent possible.
eg: I wear lots of safety equipment, but I don’t stop motorcycling.
I just wish people – no, i *fear* that people now live in fear of being told-off, and that unless some challenge the instances of false authority, our freedoms really will go down the pan.
As for the entirety of the e-mail, yeah, there are a few headers and a smidgen of hypertext missing. 😎
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