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British Airways has been contacting passengers due to fly on 27th September 2019 to let them know that the vast majority of flights have been cancelled in advance of planned strike action by the airline’s pilots.
If you are due to travel on the 27th, BA’s latest information is as follows:
“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 travelling 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“
The pilot’s union BALPA released the following statement in response:
“We understand that BA has started cancelling its operations on the 27th of September today outside of the 14 day window to avoid having to compensate affected passengers.
BALPA set a gap between the first and second periods of strike action to give BA time to work with us to settle this dispute with their pilots. We had today been exchanging new ideas to do that via ACAS and so it irresponsible and inconsiderate to its customers that BA has pulled out and decided to start canceling flights now, just to save money on compensation. BA did not respond to our latest proposals before cancelling these flights.
Passengers who will be affected by these cancellations should know that we have given BA multiple opportunities to work with us so we could call off this action.”
Bottom line
All the signs suggest that both sides of this dispute are digging in and preparing for more disruption. Plan accordingly.
Why would anyone fly BA?!
If you want a cheap flight you go for Ryanair or Easyjet.
If you want a great flight you go for Emirates or Qatar.
Data breaches, IT meltdowns, aggressive cost cutting, strikes, grumpy crews, customer hostile policies, business class in economy seats, ageing planes etc etc etc.
Please give me one reason why someone would book BA?
Domestics can be easily done by train.
Is it this nostalgia? Is it a lack of trust towards non-UK airlines? Is it avios? Why would someone book with an airline that is more expensive than cheap airlines but much worse than proper ones?