British Airways Faces More Cabin Crew Strikes

Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley has warned British Airways management and passengers that they may face a summer of continued strikes. He said during an annual meeting that a new ballot will be given to staff in the next week or so to decide if they will have more strikes. This news came on Monday while the carrier’s staff started their second day of a 5-day walkout over the half-term holiday period.

Woodley said at the meeting in Manchester that British Airways’ vicious determination to punish their workers means that they have no choice but to take further industrial action this summer. This comes after Willie Walsh, the carrier’s chief executive, refuses to give back full travel perks to staff that participated in the March strikes. Instead, he will return them if they are treated as new recruits.

Over the course of the strikes, which now totals 14 days, British Airways has lost about £90 million at a rate of about £7 million a day. This means that they could stand to lose another £55 million during the rest of this strike and the final 5-day strike that’s planned for June 5 – for a total of about £145 million in losses from the dispute.

The last thing that British Airways needs is to lose more money from industrial action, as they have already reported record losses for the last financial year. This didn’t even include figures from how much they lost due to the volcanic ash cloud that haunted European airspace for nearly a month-and-a-half.

The longer this dispute goes on, the closer British Airways gets to bankruptcy. The only way to end the strikes is for both sides to forget about their egos and bend a little on what they want.