British Airways strike: Almost all flights have been cancelled during walkout

Exclusive: 40 New York flights are among those grounded by the BA pilots’ walkout

Simon Calder
Travel Correspondent
Friday 06 September 2019 14:51 BST
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Almost all flights cancelled during British Airways pilots' walkout

Heathrow Terminal 5, which normally handles 90,000 passengers on nearly 600 flights each day, will be eerily quiet on Monday and Tuesday next week.

British Airways has cancelled almost all the 1,600 flights it was due operate because of a strike by pilots. Most BA departures from Heathrow Terminal 3 and Gatwick will also be grounded.

All 40 flights between London Heathrow and New York, which is BA’s most important and profitable route, have been cancelled.

The same applies to 16 Boston flights, a dozen to and from Los Angeles, and services to many other US destinations.

Both daily departures to the key destinations of Delhi, Hong Kong and Johannesburg are grounded.

One long-haul flight which has survived is on Monday from Sydney via Singapore to Heathrow, which will be among very few flights arriving at Heathrow Terminal 5 on Tuesday.

The vast majority of pilots – 93 per cent – are employed at Heathrow, with the remainder at Gatwick.

From Gatwick, the daily New York JFK flight is unaffected, but the double-daily round-trips to Orlando in Florida are cancelled, along with flights to the Caribbean islands.

Analysis of the schedules by The Independent indicates that British Airways will be operating almost all its flights at the weekend.

It means that some pilots will be potentially “downroute” – staying in hotels at BA’s expense – while on strike on Monday and/or Tuesday.

Flight crew who are members of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa) are seeking an improved pay deal from BA, above the current offer of an 11.5 per cent rise over three years.

They have voted overwhelmingly to take their first industrial action for 40 years.

British Airways says it has 4,311 pilots, and that 1,061 did not vote to strike – because they either abstained or voted against a strike, or do not belong to the pilots’ union.

Short-haul services are also almost all grounded, including 64 services between London and Edinburgh, 28 links with Milan Malpensa and 20 on the important business route to Frankfurt.

Some passengers have been rebooked on other airlines.

Because it gave travellers two weeks’ notice of the cancellations, it does not have to pay cash compensation.

On Thursday the pilots’ union wrote to the airline’s chief executive, Alex Cruz, with “a new proposal which shows pilots are willing to be flexible but still stand united in getting a better deal”.

Balpa’s general secretary, Brian Strutton, said: “Our members’ resolve is very strong and they remain very angry with BA, but they also want to leave no stone unturned in trying to find a resolution to their dispute.”

British Airways has rejected the proposal. A BA spokesperson said: “We and the union’s leaders agreed and shook on a deal on Monday 12 August only for the union to backtrack on that agreement and return with new and unrealistic demands.

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“Balpa has cynically waited until we have helped the vast majority of customers with alternative travel arrangements, and our planning for a strike has reached a critical stage.

“We remain open to constructive talks with Balpa to resolve the pay negotiations, but we do not believe the union is acting in good faith by making an eleventh hour inflated proposal which would cost an additional £50m.”

The union says the gap between the airline and the pilots is only £5m annually.

The strike will cost British Airways between £75m and £80m in lost revenue, plus extra costs in customer care.

Flight crew working for BA’s CityFlyer operation at London City are not involved in the dispute.

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