British Airways Crew Reject Offer

Travelers in the UK may have to deal with more air travel chaos now that the cabin crew of British Airways has rejected the airline’s final pay and working conditions offer. Due to this decision, the union may ballot for more strikes, which could start as early as September, grounding more flights.

Unite represents almost 11,000 of the cabin staff that work for British Airways. They announced yesterday that about 67% of the members that voted on the deal rejected it. This is shocking to the industry, as the offer included a basic salary increase of 2.9% in 2011 and 3% in 2012. However, after looking more closely to the figures, less than half of the union members even voted on the deal. This means that 3,419 rejected it, 1,686 accepted it but more than 5,500 members didn’t even vote.

British Airways is now urging Unite to accept the deal. They believe this is a positive sign, saying that the results show that 73% of all their cabin staff didn’t reject the offer. They want the union to return to the table to sign the deal and end the dispute, they added.

A Unite spokesman said that union leaders are set to meet with representatives for the crew to decide on their next move. Cabin staff have already held 22 days of walkouts this year, which has cost British Airways more than £150 million.

However, Unite has been busy threatening industrial action on more than just British Airways. Earlier this week, the union said that they will ballot security workers, engineers and firefighters at the 6 airports owned and operated by the British Airports Authority (BAA), which include those located in Southampton, Heathrow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stansted. The UK travel sector will be in for a big hit if all of these walkouts become a reality over the next 2 months.