Fresh chaos looms for travellers in the UK with British Airways cabin staff preparing for four separate back to back stoppages, with only a day’s respite between each walkout.
Union leaders of Unite escalated the long-running dispute with BA over pay and conditions by announcing the strikes will start next Tuesday.
As a result, BA’s operation will be crippled for a month with aircraft left out of position all around the world because of the industrial action.
Bob Atkinson, spokesman for the price comparison website, travelsupermarket.com, said, “There is always a time to fight for something and I think BA really wants to win this one, but it could get messy."
For BA, the threatened industrial action is likely to cost the airline at least another £100 million on top of the £40 million it lost during seven days of stoppages in March and the estimated £100 million it lost as a result of the six-day airspace lockdown caused by the volcanic ash cloud.
The first five-day stoppage will start on Tuesday, May 18 and end on Saturday, May 22. The others will take place on May 24-8, May 30-June 3 inclusive and June 5-9 inclusive.
The UK Daily Telegraph said the dispute will primarily hit British Airways’ operation at Heathrow where it operates around 550 inbound and outbound flights a day carrying around 80,000 passengers.
All flights from Gatwick and London City airports are expected to operate as normal, BA said.
BA says it can call on more than 1,000 volunteers drawn from other parts of the company, including pilots, who have been trained to step into the shoes of striking cabin crew.
In the two previous BA cabin crew strikes in March, the airline leased aircraft and crew from other companies and as a result managed to carry more than 70 per cent of passengers who had booked with them.
A British Airways spokesman said the decision to strike “has no semblance of justification”.
