Thousands of passengers may find themselves stranded this Christmas, as British Airways (BA) cabin crew threaten to strike over Christmas.
About 13,000 crew voted in favour of the 12-day strike, beginning on December 22, which will cripple the airline’s scheduled flights between Britain and Australia.
The proposed strike is over workplace conditions introduced last month. Relations between the Unite union and BA management have been tense since the new practices – which included a cut in cabin crew – were introduced.
Union chief Len McCluskey said staff want their voices heard.
“The company don’t believe the union; the company don’t believe that the strength of what we are saying is really the strength of the workforce,” he said.”Well, they’ve had that answer today.”
BA chief executive, Willie Walsh retaliated, saying it was just an overreaction to a few small changes.
“I think this is a massive overreaction to the very minor changes that we have introduced and these are changes that we have introduced in the interests of the future viability of British Airways,” he said.
Qantas is currently reviewing the impact it will have on the Australian airline, as it has a number of code-sharing flights with BA.
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