BRITISH AIRWAYS is working on measures to keep flying through any further cabin crew strikes over the summer, Willie Walsh said yesterday as he stepped up his claims that the latest round of stoppages had failed.
Asked if he could imagine a situation where BA started to sack striking workers if the Unite union representing flight attendants followed through on threats to continue the stoppages after the latest wave ends this week, the BA chief executive said “let’s see what happens”.
“I’m not going to predict what Unite try to do next,” he told reporters at the annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Berlin.
“All I’ll say is if you look at what Unite has achieved so far, they’ve not achieved their objective, which was to ground BA, and they never will achieve that objective in relation to this dispute.
“I’m very confident we will be able to increase the amount of flying we’re doing because we’re getting great support from the vast majority of people in BA.”
As the strikes have gone on in March, May and June, Mr Walsh has steadily refined a range of measures to keep flights operating, such as hiring in extra aircraft and crew, training volunteer attendants and running legal actions to block the strikes.
He is now developing those measures further in what is becoming one of the most protracted airline disputes in Europe.
“I think the contingency plans we’ve developed have worked very, very well and we continue to build on those. We’re building on the existing plans that we have.”
The latest round of three five-day walkouts is due to end tomorrow, but Unite is looking at a fresh ballot in the long-running row over pay and conditions. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)
