(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
British Airways and union representing its cabin crew “Unite” will meet today as efforts to avert a strike, set to begin tomorrow, intensifies. The London-based carrier’s negotiators will hold talks with union counterparts at a meeting chaired by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service at 4 pm. today, and Chief Executive Officer Willie Walsh and Unite Joint General Secretary Tony Woodley will hold separate meetings with UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond.
Flight attendants are set to strike for five days from tomorrow, the first of four walkouts totaling 20 days, after rejecting the most recent proposals on pay and staffing. The UK. government is looking to help resolve the clash after BA said it is seeking an injunction from the High Court to block tomorrow’s planned strike, saying Unite didn’t comply with U.K. labor law during a vote.
“At the moment you have so much intransigence, both sides are going at it in a very aggressive way,” said John Strickland, an analyst at JLS Consulting Ltd. in London. “It does need to be solved, it’s not doing the company any good in the long term.”
The strike would follow seven days of action in March that cost the company as much as 45 million pounds ($65 million). British Airways, whose financial year runs from April through to March, will report its full-year earnings May 21, and is likely to post a 600 million-pound pretax loss for the year.
Asian Travel News and Guides