BA threat to axe striking pilots’ 10% tickets perk

BA PILOTS who go on strike this week will be stripped of generous travel perks for three years in a last-ditch bid by bosses to avert a crippling walkout.

Up to 280,000 passengers will be hit as a strike tomorrow and on Tuesday grounds almost all of the carrier’s 1,700 scheduled flights.

All 40 flights between London Heathrow and New York have been axed, along with a dozen to and from LA and departures to Delhi, Hong Kong and Johannesburg.

Members of the Balpa union are walking out after rejecting an 11.5 per cent pay rise over three years plus a one per cent bonus. The average BA captain is paid £167,000 plus £16,000 in allowances.

BA’s 4,300 pilots were emailed on Friday and warned that taking part in the walkout would be a ‘serious breach’ of their employment contracts and they would lose the travel perk for three years.

Staff who have been at the airline for more than six months can buy tickets for themselves and up to three family members for ten per cent of the full fare plus taxes. But in the email, Angela Williams, BA’s director of people, said: ‘Any existing bookings for travel post the date when you took strike action will be cancelled.’

Striking pilots who live abroad and ‘commute’ by aircraft to either Heathrow or Gatwick – believed to number about 1,000 – will also lose their entitlement to heavily discounted flights from October 31.

The punishment will see some pilots spending thousands more each year getting to work. Under the perk, a pilot who commuted from LA would be able to buy a return economy ticket for flights in November for £323 – a saving of £367.

It is understood that six out of Balpa’s 14 senior reps commute from overseas, including Mark Keane, the chairman of the British Airways Company Council – Balpa’s BA arm – and a key militant behind the walkout. Keane, 27, lives in Dublin and flies to Heathrow to work.

In a further bid to break the strike, any pilot who turns up for duty on strike days will still be paid their so-called ‘flying pay’ allowance, worth £9 an hour, even if their rostered flight is axed. BA said: ‘We make no apology for doing everything we can to protect our customers from further disruption.’

Balpa said: ‘BA’s threatening letters to its pilots show that the airl i ne has had no i nt enti on of resolving their dispute. Their attitude will further inflame the BA pilots who have lost all confidence in their management.’

A third strike is set for September 27. BA pilots have reportedly made plans to crowdfund an extended campaign of industrial action.

This paper understands that in talks last month Balpa’s negotiators complained to BA about the quality of the hotels where pilots stay when they are abroad. One source said union bosses complained a four-star Holiday Inn in Paris does not have 24-hour room service. The union denied this and said the complaint was about its location. Meanwhile, some senior pilots are frustrated at the hardball negotiation tactics of younger, militant pilots at the forefront of the dispute.

‘It feels a bit like lions led by donkeys,’ said one long-serving pilot. ‘A bunch of new guys who have only been in a few years are potentially playing with a box of matches. It’s very easy when you are new and don’t have much to lose.’

The union said ‘93 per cent of all pilots, young and old alike, voted for strike action. Pilots as a whole have fallen out with BA’.