British Airways will lose a lot more than customers for failing to respect their cancellation rights

Editorial: The airline was already anticipating losses of many tens of millions of pounds from the strike. Making good the damage from the botched messaging will add millions more

For years to come, the great British Airways pilots’ strike of 2019 will constitute a case study of how a celebrated brand could upset so many customers.

The dispute is hardly of BA’s making. To their credit, British Airways and its main unions began the latest round of pay negotiations in a spirit of progress.

For the first time, the Unite union (representing cabin crew), the GMB (representing ground-based staff) and Balpa (the British Airline Pilots’ Association) all sat down together with BA to hammer out a pay deal.