British Airways to cut 1,700 cabin crew jobs
British Airways announced plans to cut 1,700 cabin crew jobs, including 1,000 voluntary redundancies and allowing approximately 300 staff to change to part time work (Associated Press/Bloomberg/telegraph.co.uk/Times Online, 06-Oct-09). A company-wide two-year pay freeze on basic pay will also be implemented. Unite reportedly plans to urge members to reject the new contract to be imposed on staff without consultation with the union. BA is also reportedly planning to cut ground operations positions, with union, GMB stating it would also refuse such plans.
British Airways: "Revenues are down, so we must reduce costs to restore profitability. Thousands of staff across the airline have already made contributions to the cost-reduction programme. We have been talking to the cabin crew unions since the start of the year, but have made little progress on the contribution they might make. We have extremely professional cabin crew. However, we cannot ignore the fact that our Heathrow-based cabin crew costs are much higher than those of our Gatwick-based crew and of our competitors," Spokesperson. Source: telegraph.co.uk, 06-Oct-09.