BA strike called off after union deal

New Delhi, Jan 30 (UNI) British Airways (BA) has finally averted a costly 48-hour strike by cabin crew members after reaching a last-minute deal with its largest union in return for new working conditions.

BA is now trying to reinstate as many as possible of the 1,300 flights it had cancelled for today and tomorrow although it acknowledged that many of the 1,40,000 travellers affected had already switched plans.

A pair of three-day strikes set for February were also called off.

''We have resolved what was a major industrial issue in a very thorough way,'' BA's chief executive Willie Walsh said in a statement.

''Unfortunately, the decision has come too late to prevent disruption to the travel plans of tens of thousands of our customers.'' Added Transport and General Workers Union (T&G) general secretary Tony Woodley: ''We're delighted to reach an agreement.'' BA operates 43 flights per week to five cities in India. It operates a double daily service from London Heathrow to Mumbai and Delhi, a daily service to Bangalore, three times per week to Kolkata and five flights a week to Chennai.

The T&G, representing two-thirds of BA's 15,000 cabin crew, said it had won a 4.6 per cent pay rise for its members at BA, or 0.2 percentage points above Britain's RPI measure of inflation which would begin next month.

A deal set at RPI for next year was also agreed. BA -- Europe's third largest airline -- also agreed to address disparities in its two pay scales for cabin crew. Stepped changes to the lower-paying of the two will raise a ceiling on base cabin crew pay to 18,600 pounds in four years from a current cap of 15,748 pounds.

Mr Woodley said the move would boost pensionable pay by 18.75 per cent in some cases and involve BA contributing an initial six million pounds.

UNI