BA humbug: are cabin crew killing the golden goose?

By Luke Bozier / @luke_cb

I was a bit confused yesterday when I heard that British Airways cabin crew had voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike over the Christmas period. Surely, for an organisation concerned with the future of their jobs, which is the reason they claim to be taking action, striking such a serious blow against their beleaguered employer at such a crucial time for the airline industry, is surely going to cause more damage than harm to future employment prospects.

BA is already the laughing stock of the world’s major airlines, following previous strikes, an innate ability to lose more of their passengers’ luggage than any other airline and the disastrous opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have trusted in the British flag carrier to get them to wherever they need to be this Christmas, and this strike action if it goes ahead will further erode BA’s credibility.

I understand that the staff and Unite the union have concerns which they want addressed, and of course as a Labour member I care about the rights of all workers. But it seems that they are wide of the mark if they believe that it’s right to launch this strike at such a crucial time. With the economy still in the early stages of recovery, and the airline industry in general reeling from a downturn in passenger numbers all over the world, this strike is reckless. Not only will it cause major disruption for many thousands of people this Christmas, but it will send a public relations shock-wave throughout the world which will turn many people off booking British Airways flights in the future. The ensuing reduced credibility in the company will result in falling revenues and could necessitate wider and deeper staff cuts.

According to Willie Walsh, BA lost £400 million last year, which were the worst results in the company’s history. In his statement published on BA’s website last night, he also says that “according to the Civil Aviation Authority, average costs of BA crew are twice those of their Virgin Atlantic counterparts”. A junior crew member’s average earnings on a long-haul flight are £35,000 a year, which is not a small salary by anybody’s judgement, and efforts by the union to raise this salary will seem to people who have been made unemployed by the economic crisis as greed.

Unite claims that “75 per cent of crew earn £20,000 after many years service”, and that their salaries are topped up through allowances which will be reduced by BA under new terms. Willie Walsh in response says “our package involves no reduction in terms or conditions for existing crew”. I don’t know who to believe, but I know that this isn’t the time to put yet another nail in British Airways’ coffin. We’re lucky to still have a large flag-carrier like BA, but it is under severe financial and public relations duress, and I for one don’t know how much longer it will be flying the flag.

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