Five days to BA pilots’ strike: Nigerians brace up

FOLLOWING the announcement made by the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) that British Airways pilots would embark on strike on September 9, September 10, and September 27, 2019, Nigerian travelers have started bracing up in readiness for the challenges of flight disruptions that may come with the action.

The planned strike, if allowed to take place, may cost the British carrier a whopping £120 million as the strike will cost British Airways around £40m per day, meaning that the three day strike will cost the airline around £120m.

This was just as the Managing Director of Flyboku, Mr Abiola Lawal, has declared that within the period it was going to be tough for both travelers and travel agents, who had pre-booked their flights.

He however expressed the confidence that the British airline would find a solution to the problem to ameliorate the crisis as he cautioned that labour issues at times spiral beyond the control of airlines.

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As a result of the planned action, Abiola hinted that travelers and travel agents were already working round the clock to see how they could reschedule or cancel their clients’ flights within that period.

The airline presently operates services to Lagos and Abuja with daily flights to the two cities amounting to 14 frequencies.

The planned strike was a fallout of an earlier overwhelming voting carried out by the pilots in the airline back in July this year for industrial action.

The reason this has been so drawn out was because British Airways took the union to court, and the court voted in favour of the union and efforts made by the airline management to appeal the decision failed again.

During negotiations, the union put forward a number of packages that they believed would have resolved the dispute without a strike but the airline management was said to have turned down the packages.

With 93 per cent of pilots voting in favour of industrial action, and with no further meaningful talks, the union has no choice but to organise the strike.

While this is the first time that British Airways’ pilots will ever go on strike, it has been revealed that the ballot would be valid until January giving room for more dates to be announced until this is resolved.

British Airways in its reaction described the development as completely unacceptable and accused BALPA attempting to destroy the travel plans of tens of thousands of travelers.

The airline management however said that they will be making changes to their schedule, and will do what they can to get as many people to their destinations as possible while for those they can’t help, the airline promised to offer refunds and re-bookings.