British Airways: Hundreds of flights grounded despite pilot strike being called off

Exclusive: 30,000 passengers have had their flights cancelled due to industrial action that never happened

BA’s parent company, IAG, said that the strikes in September had cost €137m (£121m)

British Airways has cancelled more than 200 flights because of a pilots’ strike that was subsequently called off.

The cancellations include services to and from many destinations already hit by the collapse of Thomas Cook.

Research by The Independent shows that at least 150 short-haul flights to and from Heathrow on Friday have been grounded, as well as six long-haul services. In addition, 48 services to and from Gatwick are cancelled.

In all, around 30,000 passengers will have their journeys disrupted.

The British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa) staged a two-day strike on 9 and 10 September, which grounded 1,700 flight and disrupted around 200,000 passengers.

The pilots’ union had planned another stoppage on 27 September, but called the strike off nine days beforehand.

By that stage, BA had already offered passengers flying on that date the option to rebook on a different British Airways service, or on another airline, or request a full refund.

On a typical day British Airways has 850 flights. Many were reinstated, but not all.

Departures that remain cancelled include links to Mediterranean destinations that have a shortage of capacity due to the sudden collapse of Thomas Cook.

Many routes from Gatwick that are in high demand have been cancelled, including Alicante, Dalaman, Heraklion, Ibiza and Malaga, as well as two round-trips to Faro on the Portuguese Algarve.

From Heathrow, holiday flights to Faro, Ibiza, Larnaca, Mykonos and Santorini have been culled.

Some routes are seeing multiple cancellations, including Geneva (four round trips) and Munich (three). While seats from Heathrow are still available on these two routes, the lowest one-way fares are £353 to Geneva and £582 to Munich.

British Airways services on Thursday and Saturday are also disrupted. On Thursday, BA has cancelled links from Heathrow to and from Barcelona, Budapest, Geneva, Milan and New York JFK.

The Independent has asked British Airways for a response.

BA’s parent company, IAG, said that the strikes in September had cost €137m (£121m).

The union has warned that “BA pilots believe their management is treating them with contempt and are now asking Balpa to consider more strike dates”.

The general secretary, Brian Strutton, said: “Their total disengagement is evidence of a senior management team that has lost the plot and doesn’t know how to resolve their dispute with their pilots.”