British Airways is planning to re-instate some cancelled short and long-haul flights after half of cabin crew turned up for work at Heathrow, despite the start of a three-day strike.
The airline said it had been able to increase the number of flights, as staff passed through a number of picket lines to report for duty, and would be selling seats on a series of Boeing 747 flights planned for tonight. Customers have been advised to check the BA website to find out what extra services were now available.
Thousands of passengers are expected to suffer severe disruption to travel plans as around 12,000 staff stage a walked out over the airline's cost cutting plans. The Unite union's assistant general secretary Len McCluskey said the industrial action would "restore dignity to British cabin crew", adding they would not be bullied in to accepting a new deal on pay and conditions.
Heathrow is expected to be the worst affected UK airport. BA announced this morning it had been forced to cancel a third of long-haul flights and two thirds of short haul flights. The airline said it had launched its "biggest contingency plan ever" and arranged with more than 60 other airlines to take customers on their flights.
Despite claims that the airline had "got off to a good start", the union claimed planes were starting to stack up at airports as a result of the strike - with 85 parked planes at Heathrow, 20 at Cardiff and 20 in Shannon.
But this evening a BA spokeswoman said: “Cabin crew are continuing to report as normal at Gatwick and the numbers reporting at Heathrow are above the levels we needed to operate our published schedule.
“At Heathrow, around 50 per cent of cabin crew have reported as normal and we are therefore increasing the number of long-haul and short-haul flights in our schedule in the days ahead.
"We aim to fly as many customers as we can this weekend in the biggest contingency operation we have ever organised."
Earlier the airline said it was confident of handling as many as 49,000 passengers today and a similar number tomorrow, compared with around 75,000 for a normal weekend day in March. Chief executive Willie Walsh said he hoped 64 per cent of passengers would be flying without a problem.
BA planned to operate all long-haul flights to and from Gatwick plus around half of short-haul flights, while all flights to and from London City Airport were expected to fly as scheduled.
A number of empty long-haul flights, without passengers or cabin crew, have also been scheduled so that aircraft and pilots are in the right place when the strike comes to an end.
Union assistant general secretary Mr McCluskey accused Mr Walsh of behaving like a "19th-century mill owner", as he addressed a crowd of about 200 strikers at Bedfont Football Club near Heathrow. Talks between BA and the union broke down last night.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment