Pilots Dispute Threatens to Ground BA

The British airways had to sort to an emergency talk with the pilots to prevent a strike which would ground the airline for the fist time in thirty years. This talk was the last attempt after months of fruitless discussions which ended last month about the structure of a new subsidiary airline that was supposed to fly between the continents of Europe and America. The talk was finalized after the Balpa members voted 86 per cent in favour of the strike that was to take place in weeks.

The main argument of the pilots about the service called open skies was that the airlines were going to hire pilots from outside the company and offer them lesser attractive terms than those offered to the mainline organization. The pilots union heard that the British airlines would be forced to make pay cuts on the rest of the employees.

Mr. Walsh stated that they were happy with the progress made and is confident that the settlement would be made soon which will prevent the customer from disruption. He also said that the company is proud of their high reputation of pilots and do not want to have a conflict with them.

However if the talks that are mediated with the third party fail then the union will be forced to move ahead as quickly as possible with the strike. According to a Balpa spokesman the strike would either be a 1-3 day strike over an ongoing action. Although most analysts predict that BA would have to step down to prevent grounding of the airline.

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