Sun, Mar 28, 2010 page11

• BA cabin crew start new wave of action

  COST CUTTING The chief executive said that cuts were necessary to ensure the future viability of the company, which could otherwise fold within as little as a decade

  • AFP
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  British Airways (BA) cabin crew launched a four-day strike yesterday, the second wave of action in a week as part of a bitter, long-running dispute over pay and conditions.

  BA has pledged that more than three-quarters of its passengers — or more than 180,000 out of 240,000 — will still be able to travel as planned during the walkout, which follows a similar three-day action last week.

  A further 18 percent of customers have been rebooked with other airlines, or have switched their travel dates to avoid the strike period, it said.

  BA chief executive Willie Walsh, who insists the company could fold in a decade unless the changes he wants take place, said the “vast majority” of staff were “pulling together to serve our customers and keep our flag flying.”

  “At the same time, I feel really sorry for those customers whose plans have been ruined by the Unite union’s completely unjustified action,” he said.

  Amid growing hostility between BA and trade union Unite, whose members are staging seven days in total of strikes, the union said the cost to BA would be £100 million (US$149 million).

  “If you add together the cost of lost bookings, of revenue effectively transferred to other airlines along with BA passengers, the cost of [leased] aircraft and the cost of knock-on post-strike disruption, this is the ball-park area we are in,” the union said in a statement.

  Talks between the two sides broke down eight days ago, on the eve of the first wave of strikes.

  Walsh came under fire from leading academics in a letter to the Guardian newspaper published on Friday.

  The letter, signed by 116 industrial relations experts from universities across Britain, said his actions were designed to break Unite, which represents BA’s 12,000 cabin crew.

  They said Walsh had withdrawn an offer that could have prevented Unite’s strikes.

  BA has also axed highly prized perks like big travel discounts for all striking workers.

  “It is clear to us that the ­actions of the chief executive of British Airways ... are explicable only by the desire to break the union which represents the cabin crew,” the academics’ letter read.

  BA denies it is seeking to break Unite and in an interview with the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Walsh said the reforms he wanted were vital to the company’s survival.

  “We are trying to transform the way we operate because the industry is changing and the economic conditions have changed so radically that we’ve got to change,” Walsh said. “We’re doing this to make sure BA still exists in 10 years. If we don’t do this, BA won’t exist in 10 years.”

  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned the strike. But with a general election expected to take place in May, the main opposition Conservatives have accused the government of a weak response to the action because Unite is a major donor to Brown’s ruling Labour party.
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