British Airways Strike:

The airline’s 13,500 cabin crew will start a wave of industrial action next Tuesday, Dec 22, that will last until Jan 2.

The strike is likely to ground almost all of BA’s fleet, ruining the pre-booked holidays and family reunions of the estimated one million travellers scheduled to fly with the airline over Christmas and New Year.

It will cause chaos at one of the busiest times of the year when the airline normally operates 650 flights and carries 90,000 passengers a day and risks doing further damage to the beleaguered company’s business.

The vast majority of BA flights are likely simply to be cancelled, with passengers facing a battle to make alternative travel arrangements in time.

British Airways said it would offer to find customers seats on rival airlines, a full refund, or the opportunity to travel at a later date.

But compensation will be paid only after it has been confirmed the flight has been cancelled, something that could be decided at a few days’ notice.

The strike, over changes to working conditions, was described last night as “terrible, terrible news for passengers” by Rochelle Turner, the head of research at the watchdog Which? Travel. “Hundreds of thousands of people who want to see their loved ones at Christmas are being held hostage by BA,” she said. “And this is something passengers will remember for years to come.”

BA passengers who have booked hotels or other accommodation for their Christmas holiday face a further headache. The cost of these is only likely to be covered by their travel insurance policy if they booked their holiday before Nov 2 — the date when the strike ballot was first announced.

This means that passengers who want to salvage their Christmas holidays now face a frantic scramble for seats on other airlines. Given that demand for air travel over the festive season is so high, these are likely to be in short supply and prices will be considerably higher than those they originally paid.

BA managers have made little secret of the fact that they regard the strike threat as “suicidal”, fearing that passengers who are lost to other carriers may not return. Willie Walsh, the airline’s chief executive, said: “What you have seen is cynical action on the part of the union to cause massive disruption to potentially a million BA passengers.

“Unite’s decision will damage BA in the short-term and could damage the future viability of the airline.”

Within an hour of the strike vote being announced, easyJet made a pitch for BA passengers, saying it still had some space available on its network of 485 routes, and bmi placed advertisements to attract affected passengers. One source in the travel industry said: “There has been an 'ABBA effect’ — anyone but BA — for the past few weeks at travel agents as holidaymakers anticipated this strike coming for some time.”

The dispute, the first walkout by BA cabin crew in 12 years, centres on a row over changes to working conditions, prompted by the airline’s need to slash costs.

These include a cut in the number of staff on board each flight, a freeze on pay and less favourable contracts for new staff. Airline bosses believe the cuts are essential and highlight the fact that cabin service directors at BA already earn £56,000 a year on long haul and £52,000 on short haul, the highest pay for those jobs in Britain. Most of BA’s staff earn twice as much as their contemporaries at Virgin Atlantic.

Earlier this year, BA reported annual losses of £401million. Even without the strike — and the cost of paying out refunds to all the affected passengers — it is on course to double this figure over the next 12 months.

Analysts estimated that the strike could cost BA about £10million a day. Yesterday the airline also announced it has a pension deficit of £3.7billion.

Following the announcement of the strike, the airline’s share price fell 0.3p to £2.01.

The scale of the industrial action has also left BA with a significant logistical problem as it tries to placate angry customers and, where possible, save their holidays.

Passengers are being urged to ensure the airline has their correct contact details so that it can text, email or telephone those whose flights have been cancelled or changed.

The strike call was endorsed by 92.5 per cent of those who took part in a ballot of cabin crew, members of the trade union Unite. Eight out of 10 crew voted, making it one of the most decisive recent calls for industrial action.

Unlike the recent rolling postal strike, in which workers in different parts of the country walked out on different days, the BA strike is likely to involve all cabin crew being out for the 12-day duration. Unite’s vote is likely to trigger days of frantic negotiation, as each side blames the other.

Last night, the airline’s management angrily condemned the walkout. A statement said: “A 12-day strike would be completely unjustified and a huge overreaction to the modest changes we have announced for cabin crew, which are intended to help us recover from record financial losses.”

Len McCluskey, the union’s assistant general secretary, said Unite was taking the industrial action with a “heavy heart”, adding that cabin crew felt a deep sense of injustice because BA management had imposed unacceptable changes.