Strike action to cause flight disruptions

News at Gatwick 15/03/2010

Second runway ruled out at Gatwick : March 2010 : First flight in 20 years from Iraq arrives

Longest strike in BA's history

Unite, the union representing the British Airways staff, have announced a series of strikes. The cabin crew members voted for a series of strikes that will culminate in the airlines’ longest strike in its history. The seven day strike will take place in the run up to Easter with members walking out for three days from Saturday 20th March to 27th March. The dispute is over working conditions and pay. The union has said that it will call further strikes if the matter was not settled with further walk outs due from April 14th.

The unions members are demanding a three year wage deal and a pay rise of up to 4 per cent next year and the year after. The union believes that 800 cabin crew who were removed from flight rosters should be re instated. Len McClusky, the union’s assistant general secretary said that he had been forced to take the strike action after British Airways turned down a union plan which was aimed at saving £62 million from its cabin crew budget. He accused the BA management of being obstructive towards them.

BA said it was very disappointed by the decision to stage the strikes and that it was wrong to cause so much disruption when it was already suffering with enormous loses and that they have managed to avoid compulsory redundancies so far. It expected that 70 per cent of its cabin crew would continue working at Gatwick leaving 50 per cent of short haul flights badly affected by the strike action.

Second runway ruled out at Gatwick : March 2010 : First flight in 20 years from Iraq arrives

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