Update: British Airways pilots have called off this strike.
Earlier this week British Airways pilots went on strike for the first time in decades. The pilots carried out a two day strike that canceled hundreds of flights. This strike is over a pay dispute — the company has offered an 11.5% pay increase over three years, but the pilots voted overwhelmingly to reject this.
The strike wasn’t just limited to September 9 & 10, though. British Airways pilots are also going on strike on September 27, and yesterday British Airways canceled hundreds of flights ahead of this.
They canceled these flights exactly two weeks in advance. That’s because if they canceled flights within two weeks of departure they’d have to pay EU261 compensation to passengers, so they obviously want to avoid that.
Virtually all British Airways “mainline” flights are canceled on September 27, and you might even notice some disruptions on days around the strike, since aircraft obviously won’t necessarily be located where they need to be in order to operate other flights.
As British Airways explains on their website:
Further industrial action by BALPA, the pilots’ union, is planned for Friday 27 September.
We remain ready and willing to return to talks with them.
As a result, we have reviewed our flying schedule. We have emailed customers traveling on impacted flights, however please check your flight status in Manage My Booking. We will offer impacted customers the option to receive a full refund or the option to re-book to another travel date or on an alternative airline.
Flights on BA CityFlyer (flights operated from London City airport), SUN-AIR and Comair are unaffected.
Our customer contact centres are extremely busy, so we recommend that you check our Frequently asked questions below in the first instance.
- For refund and rebooking options, go to Manage My Booking
- If your flight is part of a British Airways Holidays booking, please check our Frequently asked questions below
- If you have booked with a travel agent, please contact them directly
- For bookings made with Avios, please call us on the number below, to discuss your options
If you’re flying with us, please make sure we have your latest contact details. You can update these on Manage My Booking.
We will keep this page updated with further information as it becomes available.
Hopefully this time British Airways sends out the correct flight cancelation emails. During the last round of strikes they sent out a bunch of accidental cancelation emails, as if this situation wasn’t complicated enough.
It’s interesting that neither side seems to be budging with these negotiations, and it sounds like this next strike very well could happen. British Airways pilots have had their flight benefits taken away, so British Airways management is playing hardball.
If this strike does in fact happen, I’ll be curious to see what the next step is in these “negotiations.”
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