Industrial action by British Airways cabin crew will continue to affect scheduled long-haul flights on March 31, including one from Dubai, the carrier said in a statement on Sunday. “There will be some cancellations of flights globally on the 31st as the airline get their aircraft, pilots and cabin crew back into the correct positions around the world,” a BA spokesperson said.
Unite, the union representing BA cabin crew, began the second phase of its industrial action on Saturday March 27 and it is planned to continue until Tuesday March 30.
Flights that will be affected by the spillover into March 31 include one from Dubai, BA 0106, which was scheduled to depart Dubai for London Heathrow at 01:45.
“The knock-on impact is far less than anticipated due to the numbers of cabin crew who plan to work as normal,” the BA spokesperson added.
On Thursday, BA said it was forced to cancel one daily flight on the London to Dubai route on March 29 and 30. While fights on the Doha-Bahrain-Dubai route have been canceled during the second phase of strike action, scheduled flights are due to resume as normal from March 31.
Flights from Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Riyadh, Jeddah and Kuwait were not affected by the strikes.
The industrial action is over proposed changes to pay and working conditions announced by BA management, which has said it needs to shave more than $90m off the airline’s annual expenditure.
BA made a pre-tax loss in the nine months to December 2009 of $511m, compared to a loss of $104m in the same period in 2008.
The changes include a pay freeze in 2010, reducing the number of cabin crew on long haul flights from 15 to 14 and switching around 3,000 staff to part-time work.
“Some long-haul cancellations for 31 March and later dates have already been published but the long-haul schedule is still subject to change,” the BA website said on Sunday.
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