The ongoing dispute between British Airways and the cabin crew union returned to the High Court in London today.
Unite is seeking a permanent injunction which would prevent the airline from imposing cost-cutting proposals - which came into effect before Christmas - that affect the number of crew on long-haul flights from Heathrow.
BA believes it is within its rights to reduce the number of crew onboard its Worldwide and Eurofleet services.
But the union claims any change would breach employee contracts which were previously agreed between the company and employee representatives.
The Press Association reported the John Hendry QC will present 10 test cases which are "representative" of 5,400 claimants who are among the 13,400 crew employed by BA.
The QC was reported as saying: "This is not an action which is intended to seek some sort of collective enforcement of the relevant terms. These are individual employees, each of whom seeks the enforcement of his or her individual terms, and the relevant terms are the number of crew he or she has to work with on any particular flight."
The case is expected to last for five days.
Unite is re-balloting its 12,000 cabin crew members at BA for industrial action over the row, with the result due on February 22.
Meanwhile, this Friday BA is expected to report heavy losses for the fourth financial quarter of 2009.
www.ba.com