British Airways cabin crew’s of 12,500 are prepared to strike starting December 22nd 2009 effectively grounding London Heathrow’s largest airline during the busiest travel season. The cabin crew voted today December 14th during a heated meeting of Unite union members at Sandown racecourse in favor of a strike that will effect 1 million passengers during the Christmas travel season.
The vote in favor of a strike comes just after reports of British Airways record losses in the last 12 months. If British Airways management and Unite representatives fail to reach an agreement over the course of the next week, the walkout could cripple the airline financially and severely damage the airline's reputation.
However, the largest blow will be to the 910,000 passengers who are already scheduled to travel during the strike dates, many of which are left to scramble for available flights and tickets during the already busy Christmas season.
The airline announced sweeping changes in order to cut costs that would include eliminating more than 1500 jobs, freezing pay for current staff members, and offering lower wages for any new employees.
The announcement of the Cabin Crew strike came within hours of British Airways announcing that is has nearly doubled it‘s pension benefit deficit. Analysts said the pensions black hole – one of the largest pension fund deficits in the private sector – was bigger than expected.
A British Airways spokeswoman denied that the pension funds announcement was deliberately timed to coincide with the Sandown meeting. "The pension scheme is not an issue that is part of the ballot. Once we had reached an agreement with the pension trustees, we had to release it to the market."
"We are deeply saddened to have reached the point where we must take industrial action to get our voices heard, but feel that we have been left with no other choice," the statement said. "We do not want to cause inconvenience, so even at this late stage we offer an opportunity for disruption not to occur."
UPDATE: December 15th 2009- British Airways ticket holders may be headed for even more disappointment. While passengers who bought tickets without restrictions have the flexibility to change their flights to an accommodating date and time or request a refund, passengers who have tickets that have either non refundable or non exchangeable restrictions will only be able to request a refund after the strike begins on December 22nd 2009.
Those who have tickets reserved for this Christmas and strike period can find more information here:
British Airways Cabin crew Strike information
Be sure that if you have booked a ticket within the strike time frame that your customer information is up to date with British Airways. The airline is working to inform its affected passengers of changes first via e mail or sms text messages.
British Airways says they will go to court to attempt to block the strike.
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Comments
That's terrible and right before the holidays too.
"We do not want to cause inconvenience" Um...pretty sure that's what you're doing Unite, and you know it full well.
Hope this gets straightened out or it could be a huge mess.
Hope they settle.
Neat read, Jenn. I'm wagering that they arrive at some sort of compromise before the scheduled strike date; the strike would severely cripple both sides, it seems.
Cheers...
This will really cause an impact for travelers, and being a Brit myself, it makes me sad that the UK's favorite airline has to resort to this. I wish all concerned the best of luck. Great article Jennifer.
That is a mess.
I'm not quite sure what the employees expect the airline to do. They're losing hundreds of millions of dollars (pounds too!) and the industry is a mess. BA may provide great service, but they are too big, too inefficient and have too many staff. There is no choice but to downsize, unfortunately, and the cabin attendants striking hurts all of their fellow employees, not to mention the airline itself. I would book another carrier as there are plenty of options, and never go back.
Not a good thing...I hope they resolve this soon.
There is so much information on both sides of the issue, but the passengers trying to get to family for Christmas are stuck with the mess.
I can't boo hoo too much for BA. They were the ones who colluded to drive Freddie Laker's Laker Airways out of business. I'm not sure if they're still owned or heavily subsidized by the British government. All the legacy carriers have dug deep holes for themselves, not only on pension issues, but in their corporate mindset. Who are the carriers making money today? Ryanair (of questionable taste), JetBlue, Southwest, Alaska, and offshore carriers operating in the Latin and South American markets, maybe the Saudis and the Emirates, I'm not certain about them. Anyway, it is always a pleasure reading your articles.
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