BA pilots to be balloted
Willie Walsh, ceo of BA, has warned that the worst of the recession for the airline industry is still ahead.
His grim words come after the BA chief said his carrier was battling for survival and asked his 40,000 staff to work for nothing for a month.
Mr Walsh has already said he will forfeit his £61,000 pay for July. The airline's chief financial officer Keith Williams has also said he will forgo his salary for that month.
After more talks with unions yesterday over redundancies and pay freezes, BA's pilots are to be balloted on the airline's latest offer.
The airline has offered its pilots a package of pay cuts and productivity deals which it says will save it £26m a year.
The offer, which has the backing of the pilots union Balpa, includes a pay cut of 2.61% for the pilots and a 20% cut in flying time allowances.
Annual duty hours would also be increased, turn around time on short haul flights cut and crew on some long haul services would be reduced.
In return for agreeing the deal, the pilots would shares in BA worth £13m in June 2011 as part of a long term incentive scheme.
This part of the deal is dependant on the company reaching specified targets. The pilots would not be able to sell their shares for three years.
BA posted a pre-tax loss of £401m last month and Mr Walsh, said in the airline's in house journal British Airways News: "I am looking for every single part of the company to take part in some way in this cash-effective way of helping the company's survival plan. It really counts."
He said the airline's survival depended on "everyone contributing to changes that permanently remove costs from every part of the business."
Some sectors of the BA workforce have already accepted changes in their working patterns but others, including cabin crew, are arguing that the changes should only be temporary because BA's problems were short term.
But Mr Walsh has countered by claiming that the aviation industry is facing permanent changes because of the current economic crisis and changes in working practices also had to be permanent.
BA is hoping to reach agreements with all its workforce sectors by the end of the month.
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