Passengers prepare for BA strike misery
Updated on 15 December 2009
As British Airways prepares to rework its flight schedules to cope with 12 days
of Christmas strike action announced by the cabin crew union, Ben King looks at
the options available to passengers.
Shares in British Airways opened two per cent down this morning following yesterday's announcement that cabin crew voted overwhelmingly for strike action.
Almost a million passengers will be affected if the strike goes ahead, as planned, for twelve days throughout the Christmas period. Consequently customers are facing an awkward choice - rebook an expensive ticket with a rival airline or face getting caught up in the chaos.
Why are the cabin crew striking?
BA cabin crew enjoy terms and conditions which are the envy of their peers. They have more generous pay, and better conditions.
But the airline itself is in dire straits, losing money hand-over-fist. In a bid to cut cabin crew labour costs, the company has moved to cut the numbers of staff on BA long-haul flights from 15 to 14, and introduced a new starting salary of £14,000 for new hires.
The union, Bassa, believes this is constitutes a change to their terms of employment - and has called for a strike.
What will the impact be?
The strike will run between 22 December and 2 January - 12 days which will bring chaos to the BA network.
With a 90 per cent vote in favour from BA's union members, it's likely to be well-supported by BA staff, unless management and unions can reach a last-minute deal.
The strike will also cause disruption to BA's own staff, who enjoy special privileges and perks over Christmas. But it will cause chaos to BA's network which will continue long after the strike has finished.
Click here for advice for travellers.
Why is BA imposing these cuts?
BA is in a terrible financial state, which is likely to get worse as the year continues.
The airline lost £401m in the last year, and is expected to lose up to £800m this year, which would be the first time since privatisation that the airline has lost money two years running.
Even more seriously, it has a massive pension fund deficit - revealed today to be £3.7bn. To put that in perspective, it's nearly twice the entire value of the airline.
Why is BA in such a state?
Aviation has never been an easy way to make money. All the scheduled airlines (as opposed to budget carriers like Ryanair) are suffering in the recession.
On the short-haul, the budget airlines have been outcompeting BA. The business and first class passengers who account for most of the profits on long-haul routes are increasingly heading for the cheap seats or staying at home.
BA has a higher costs than most of its rivals (partly thanks to those well paid cabin crew) and it's in a long process of trying to reduce those costs.
This ranges from imposing baggage and meal charges on short-haul flights to cutting staff costs - by more than 1000 redundancies, pay cuts and increased part-time working.
The damage to BA's finances and its reputation will make the process of financial rebuilding even harder.
