BA cabin crew announce series of five-day strikes

British Airways cabin crew are to stage a series of five-day strikes in their bitter row over jobs, pay and conditions, threatening travel chaos in the run-up to the summer holidays, it was announced today.

Unite said its members at the airline will take 20 days of action following their overwhelming rejection of the company’s latest offer aimed at ending their long-running dispute.

Cabin crew will walk out on May 18-22 inclusive, May 24-28, May 30-June 3 and June 5-9, which will cover the Spring Bank Holiday and school half-term holidays.

Unite’s joint general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley said: “Passengers and investors alike will be dismayed that British Airways management rejected an approach by the union over the weekend, after their offer had been comprehensively turned down by their own employees.

“Cabin crew are left with no choice but to take further strike action. There can be no industrial peace without meaningful negotiations and while management victimises trade unionists and uses disciplinary procedures in a witch-hunt.

“The seven days notice period is sufficient time for BA management to do the sensible thing and reopen meaningful negotiations.”

Unite said it was also planning to hold a further industrial action ballot of BA cabin crew over issues which have arisen from the company’s conduct during the dispute.

Unite members took part in a series of stoppages in March which caused travel mayhem for passengers and cost BA tens of millions of pounds.

The airline put in place contingency plans to keep aircraft flying, including leasing planes and crew from other companies.

BA has accused Unite of “orchestrating” rejection of a “very fair” offer it said addressed all the concerns raised during 14 months of talks.

More than 7,000 union members took part in the latest ballot, with over 5,600 rejecting the deal and 1,375 voting in favour.

Union officials said the ballot result showed the continued “strength and courage” of the cabin crew, despite claims of threats, bullying, sanctions and loss of earnings.

The original dispute was over pay, jobs and conditions, including staffing cuts on flights, but the latest offer was rejected because BA has not fully restored travel concessions taken away from crew who went on strike, and because over 50 union members were suspended.

Five people who went on strike have now been sacked, including the branch secretary of the cabin crew’s union section, the British Airways Stewards and Stewardesses Association (Bassa).

BA said it was already speaking to a number of carriers about leasing extra aircraft and obtaining thousands of seats from other airlines.

The airline said it planned to operate a “substantial” part of its longhaul schedule from Heathrow and predicted that flights to and from Gatwick would continue as normal.

A statement said: “British Airways is saddened but not surprised that Unite has announced further plans for extensive disruption for potentially hundreds of thousands of our customers over a busy period that includes the May half-term holidays.

“This decision has no semblance of justification. Unite’s officials continue to operate in their own world, showing callous disregard for our customers and their own members in all parts of our airline.

“We have made a very fair offer, which meets the concerns the union raised during 14 months of negotiations and also ensures that our crew remain the best rewarded in the UK airline industry. That offer remains available.

“We are confident that many crew will again ignore Unite’s pointless strike call and support the efforts of the rest of the airline to keep our customers flying.

“Due to the excellent levels of support we have received from cabin crew based at Gatwick, all flights to and from Gatwick will continue to operate as normal. Flights at London City will also be unaffected.

“At Heathrow we plan to operate a substantial part of our longhaul schedule and there will be a number of daily flights to every destination across our shorthaul network.

“We are speaking to a number of carriers about leasing in extra aircraft to support our shorthaul schedule and also obtaining thousands of seats from other airlines to help our customers rebook if their original flight is cancelled.

“We will give more details four or five days before the strike is due to begin when we will announce the exact details of our revised Heathrow schedule.”