Cabin crew will walk out for four separate five-day strikes in May and June. The first strike will begin on 18 May, ending on 22 May, with the three further strikes beginning on 24 May, 30 May and 5 June. 

Cabin crew strikes in March led to widespread disruption for passengers, which the airline said cost it £45m. Further disruption to flights caused by ash from the Icelandic volcano in April cost it an additional £180m.

British Airways Statement On Unite Strike Action

British Airways is saddened but not surprised that Unite has announced further plans for extensive disruption for potentially hundreds of thousands of our customers over a busy period that includes the May half-term holidays.

This decision has no semblance of justification. Unite’s officials continue to operate in their own world, showing callous disregard for our customers and their own members in all parts of our airline.

We have made a very fair offer, which meets the concerns the union raised during 14 months of negotiations and also ensures that our crew remain the best rewarded in the UK airline industry. That offer remains available.

We are confident that many crew will again ignore Unite’s pointless strike call and support the efforts of the rest of the airline to keep our customers flying.

Due to the excellent levels of support we have received from cabin crew based at Gatwick, all flights to and from Gatwick will continue to operate as normal. Flights at London City will also be unaffected.

At Heathrow we plan to operate a substantial part of our longhaul schedule and there will be a number of daily flights to every destination across our shorthaul network.

We are speaking to a number of carriers about leasing in extra aircraft to support our shorthaul schedule and also obtaining thousands of seats from other airlines to help our customers rebook if their original flight is cancelled.

We will give more details four or five days before the strike is due to begin when we will announce the exact details of our revised Heathrow schedule.

Sources. div news sites
Picture: Rob Vogelaar, ZAP16 Group