To no one's surprise, British Airways staff who are members of BALPA, the pilot's union, this week voted for strike action.
The sticking point is the perceived difference between forecast and reality.
Some 90% of BA's employees are represented by two other unions, the GMB and Unite, both of which agreed to the carrier's offer of 11.5% over three years, which was calculated as a bit more than forecast inflation.
Meanwhile BALPA is rejecting the wage hike based on the traditional benchmark of inflation and instead wants a better deal to include a profit share.
It points out that the lion's share of IAG's better-than-expected profits have been contributed by BA.
This raises issues about the sources and allocation of profit and loss.
Travel managers might just want to step back and think about the whole issue of how those who create budgets actually generate their forecasts. Some are known to derive the budgeted amount for staff costs for the following year by just raising the current salary bill by the forecast inflation rate.
Travel budgets are also sometimes constructed in the same way. Travel costs — air, hotel, car hire — can just be raised by the inflation rate. It is a defendable calculation but defendable is not the same as most accurate.
For example, buyers can use predictive analytics or specific market data to forecast more accurately. Just adding the inflation rate may not be indicative if you're moving your hotel programme from corporate negotiated rates to best rate on the day/dynamic pricing or haven't taken into account that the takeover of a company in Hungary might mean a spike in demand for flights to, and hotel rooms in, Budapest. If an air passenger tax is being muted in the US it's not sensible to increase your air budget by only 1% if your organisation has a branch office or clients there.
The likelihood of changes in company policy — whether that's to use suppliers certified as ethical or to lower the number of flight hours as eligibility to fly premium economy on long haul — will also affect budgets.
We hope that those who do budgets at British Airways had a whiff that healthy profits might have precipitated a quest for a better-than-inflation hike in remuneration. It also raises the question of whether pilots would be happy to take a cut in wages if the airline group falls into loss.
But if your interest in strikes is purely about whether summer holiday flight schedules will be affected, we should mention that the results of a strike ballot among Ryanair's British pilots is due on August 7.
The summer season is well and truly here.