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British Airways has reached an agreement with employee representatives to temporarily suspend 30,000+ cabin crew and ground staff for the next 2 months.

The airline will use the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to ensure that all affected employees will still receive 80% of their wages during the suspension.

BA’s CEO Alex Cruz said:

“We need to act now to protect jobs and ensure that BA comes out the other side of this crisis in the best possible shape…The number of colleagues who will be furloughed reflects the significant drop in flying”

Oliver Richardson, the Unite union’s national officer for aviation, who has been involved in the negotiations, commented that,

“Given the incredibly difficult circumstances that the entire aviation sector is facing this is as good a deal as possible for our members.”

Bottom line

These are incredibly tough times for the aviation industry and it’s hard to see many of the affected employees returning to work in just 2 months time. Fortunately, the Government has made clear that it is willing to extend the Job Retention Scheme for as long as is necessary, so hopefully at least some of the short term concerns of staff about their financial security will have been alleviated by today’s news.