British Airways staff have voted for a series of strikes over the next 2 weeks hitting thousands of Christmas flights and New Year flights. This will affect hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers and people flying home to be with their families and loved ones for Christmas and the New Year.
BA have expressed their “urgent need to reduce costs” as the airline industry continues to perform badly. The company reported a pre tax loss of £292m for the six months to the end of September and the trustees of its two pension schemes have just announced that there is a combined deficit of £3.7bn.
Last month, BA announced plans to cut a further 1,700 jobs, in addition to cutting the numbers of cabin crew on long-haul flights and freezing staff pay for two years. BA cabin crew are still said to be the best paid in Britain, with an average salary of £29,000 compared with £14,000 at Virgin Atlantic.
However, the Unite union has condemned the move and balloted its 12,500 cabin crew members in support of industrial action as part of the dispute over job losses and changes to working practices. The strikes will run from 22nd December until 2nd January.
The industrial action and disruption will be hugely damaging for British Airways in terms of both reputation and finances as it continues to struggle and lose money.
Ultimately the action could drive more and more customers into the arms of the budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair who will no doubt capitalise on the malaise suffered by BA.
However, when flying with the budget airlines be aware of the additional charges for placing baggage in the hold. In order to avoid these charges ensure that your travel size toiletries are all under 100ml so that they will pass through the airport security checks.
