British Airways cabin crew are to strike for a further twenty days in May and June. The strike dates are May 18-22, May 24-28, May 30-June 3, and June 5-9.
The new strike dates follow the rejection of BA's latest offer to it cabin crew, with 81 per cent of members voting against the proposals, with a 71 per cent turnout.
BA has released the following statement:
"British Airways is saddened but not surprised that Unite has announced further plans for extensive disruption for potentially hundreds of thousands of our customers over a busy period that includes the May half-term holidays.
"This decision has no semblance of justification. Unite’s officials continue to operate in their own world, showing callous disregard for our customers and their own members in all parts of our airline. We have made a very fair offer, which meets the concerns the union raised during 14 months of negotiations and also ensures that our crew remain the best rewarded in the UK airline industry. That offer remains available.
"We are confident that many crew will again ignore Unite’s pointless strike call and support the efforts of the rest of the airline to keep our customers flying.
"Due to the excellent levels of support we have received from cabin crew based at Gatwick, all flights to and from Gatwick will continue to operate as normal. Flights at London City will also be unaffected.
"At Heathrow we plan to operate a substantial part of our longhaul schedule and there will be a number of daily flights to every destination across our shorthaul network.
"We are speaking to a number of carriers about leasing in extra aircraft to support our shorthaul schedule and also obtaining thousands of seats from other airlines to help our customers rebook if their original flight is cancelled.
"We will give more details four or five days before the strike is due to begin when we will announce the exact details of our revised Heathrow schedule."
Unite’s joint general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley said: “Passengers and investors alike will be dismayed that British Airways' management rejected an approach by the union over the weekend, after their offer had been comprehensively turned down by their own employees.
“Cabin crew are left with no choice but to take further strike action. There can be no industrial peace without meaningful negotiations and while management victimises trade unionists and uses disciplinary procedures in a witch-hunt.
“The seven days notice period is sufficient time for BA management to do the sensible thing and reopen meaningful negotiations.”
Unite says it is also "intending to hold a further industrial action ballot of BA cabin crew over issues which have arisen from the company’s conduct during the dispute".
