Any hope that the situation between BA, cabin crew and Unite will be resolved have been dashed after BA rejected an offer to resume talks. Now Unite say its members plan to take 20 days of action after they rejected BA’s latest offer, the walk outs are planned for May 18-22 inclusive, May 24-28, May 30-June 3 and June 5-9. The last day of strike action will come just two days before the start of the world cup tournament.
Many passengers will be affected as the planned walk outs cover the spring bank holiday and half-term school holidays as well as the fans travelling to South Africa. So far BA has dismissed Unites pleas for further talks and the carrier is remaining firm with offers.
BA said it planned to operate a “substantial” part of its long-haul schedule from Heathrow and predicted that flights to and from Gatwick would continue as normal. A statement from the airline said: “British Airways is saddened but not surprised that Unite has announced further plans for extensive disruption for potentially hundreds of thousands of our customers over a busy period that includes the May half-term holidays. This decision has no semblance of justification. Unite’s officials continue to operate in their own world, showing callous disregard for our customers and their own members in all parts of our airline. We have made a very fair offer, which meets the concerns the union raised during 14 months of negotiations and also ensures that our crew remain the best rewarded in the UK airline industry. That offer remains available. We are confident that many crew will again ignore Unite’s pointless strike call and support the efforts of the rest of the airline to keep our customers flying.”
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