British Airways pilots’ strike: Day one ends in acrimony

With 300 planes grounded, airline and union are into the blame game

The first day of the most damaging strike in BA’s history passed off quietly.

Noise at Heathrow was reduced by more than half because almost the entire British Airways flying programme was cancelled due to a strike by members of British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa)

At Gatwick, air-traffic controllers coordinating the world’s busiest runway enjoyed the quietest day since Christmas, with around a quarter of BA arrivals and departures grounded.

BA’s terminals at each airport were similarly serene, with staff far outnumbering the trickle of travellers, mostly foreign visitors, who had not had word that one of Europe’s giant airlines had stopped flying for two days.

One unfortunate passenger who had been rebooked by British Airways on another airline had failed to recognise that his plane was departing from a different airport. When he turned up at Gatwick to discover his mistake, he was furious.

Fury was the order of the day for each side in an increasingly acrimonious pay dispute.

The airline is offering pilots a pay rise worth 11.5 per cent over three years, which it describes as “a deal already accepted by members of the Unite and GMB unions, which represent 90 per cent of British Airways’ staff, a deal which we believe is fair.”

The union is demanding captains and first officers should get, on average, an additional £1,000 each year.

Balpa says pilots took huge sacrifices in hard times to support BA, and they “deserve a small fraction of the profits their sacrifices helped to generate”.

The airline told striking pilots they would lose their staff travel concessions for three years.

On BA.com, passengers were told Balpa was to blame, with the message: “We understand the frustration and disruption Balpa’s strike action has caused you.

“After many months of trying to resolve the pay dispute, we are extremely sorry that it has come to this.”

On Sky News, the chief executive, Alex Cruz, called the pilots’ strike an “own goal”. He said: “It is punishing our customers, first; it is punishing our brand; it is punishing the 90 per cent of colleagues who have already accepted this 11.5 per cent deal.”

The BA boss’s adversary is Brian Strutton, general secretary of Balpa. He said: “Pilots are standing firm and have shown just how resolute they are today.

“British Airways needs to start listening to its pilots and actually come up with ways of resolving this dispute.”

Caught in the middle: almost 200,000 passengers who had booked on BA for the strike days and some flights on either side.

Relative tranquility is expected on Tuesday as well, with British Airways again cancelling all but a handful of the normal 850 daily flights. Almost all its fleet of 300 aircraft will remain on the ground.

But with crews and aircraft already stationed abroad ready for the resumption of flying, Wednesday’s schedule is unlikely to be badly hit.