Strike row set to disrupt BA passenger travels (From Thisisdorset)

Strike row set to disrupt BA passenger travels

7:00pm Monday 15th March 2010 in

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THOUSANDS of airline passengers are facing disruption from this weekend if no deal can be reached to head off a strike by British Airways cabin crew.

Gordon Brown yesterday weighed into the row, calling the strike “unjustified” and “deplorable”.

And transport secretary Lord Adonis has claimed the whole future of BA could be at risk from the two waves of industrial action, which will last seven days in total.

BA has withdrawn an offer made to the unions last Friday, claiming it had only been tabled on the understanding that no plans for strikes would continue.

And although the details of negotiations are unclear, the sticking point seems to be a BA plan to withdraw one cabin crew member from all flights from November. The company says it must save £60 million from its cabin crew budget, while the union Unite claims to have made its own “remarkable” offer which would have given BA what it wanted.

David Skillicorn, managing director of Bournemouth-based airline Palmair, said: “The whole industry acknowledges that BA staff enjoy the best terms and conditions in the business and that’s a historic thing. We’ve never been through such turbulent times in the airline industry and it’s clear that BA simply cannot afford to carry on with terms and conditions as they are now.”

He added: “The union is putting themselves on a collision course with BA management and that cannot be in the long-term interests of BA employees as a whole.”

He said his company had been “inundated” with applications for cabin crew posts on its summer programme this year.

Daily Echo readers commenting online have been split over the strike.

BH10et, Bournemouth, said: “Many of the BA Cabin Crew Association do not want to strike, and the rest of BA staff will suffer along with the strikers. BA cabin crew receive more in pay than many if not all of the other flight crews, and with better benefits… The unions and the strikers do not give one iota of care for their passengers, the very people who pay their wages.”

Peggy Babcock, Poole, said: “This continued strike action will bring down the airline, and it serves the cabin crew right if they find themselves without a job. I feel sorry for all the other employees that did not want this action and who as a result of this may also lose their jobs.”

Mediclogan5, Bournemouth, said: “BA cabin crew deserve no sympathy and should stop being greedy and selfish when it comes to holding passengers to ransom to get what they want. Personally I am rooting for BA and suggest they sack the lot of them and employ people who would be more than grateful for a full-time post.”

But Trainsdriver3ss said BA chief exec Willie Walsh – “who has led this company into multi-million losses” – was wrong to “lecture” staff earning a “tiny fraction of his salary”. He said: “It is the company management who are bent on causing this strike, not the union.”