The 48-hour strike by British Airways pilots is not over yet. Already on Monday almost all flights of the group were canceled. The strike call on the first day of the labor dispute had been "almost 100 percent" been followed, said the British aviation union Balpa on Monday evening. The labor dispute is the first pilot strike in the history of British Airways.
BA had canceled 1700 flights to and from London Heathrow and Gatwick for both days before the strike began. On Monday, about 145,000 people were affected by the flight cancellations, by Tuesday it could be twice as many. You have been offered refunds or rebookings, according to British Airways. For September 27, Balpa has called for another strike.
Flights from Germany are operated by British Airways:
- From Frankfurt, however, only flights with destination London-City, as the website of the airport indicates.
- From Munich , all flights to London Heathrow were canceled on Monday and scheduled flights to City Airport.
- From Hamburg , no British Airways aircraft take off or land on the airport website, according to the departure and arrival schedule - except one to and from Friedrichshafen. A total of twelve flights have been canceled, said the airport. Six departures and landings were canceled on Monday.
The airline set up a website for travelers to check the current status of their flight. Flights with BA CityFlyer, SUN-AIR and Comair were not affected, it was said. Each day of strike cost the company, according to Balpa 40 million British pounds (about 44 million euros).
Pilots want to be more involved in the profits
According to the union, the dispute over higher salaries could have been settled with an agreement that would have cost only one million pounds. At present no new talks between the collective bargaining parties are planned. British Airways had offered captains a salary increase of 11.5 percent over three years in July. This was rejected, however.
The pilots had to accept significant losses in difficult economic times and now wanted to be involved to a greater extent in the profit, so Balpa. The airline is one of the world's largest airlines.
