Cabin Crew working for British Airways have put their plans to set strike dates on hold as negotiations with the flag carrier continue over pay and working conditions.

About 1,000 flight attendants were yesterday told by leaders of BASSA – an offshoot of the Unite union – that every effort should be exhausted before industrial action is taken.

“There was an overwhelming feeling that we do not want to leave any stone unturned,” one BA cabin crew member told The Guardian after attending the BASSA meeting at Kempton Park racecourse, near Heathrow Airport.

The new conciliatory tone from Unite follows a massive public backlash against BA cabin crew after they voted in favour of strikes by a majority of 81 per cent earlier this week.

That was the second mandate handed to the union endorsing walkouts – coming on the heels of an even stronger vote in December, which was quashed by a High Court injunction – but union leaders are wary of rushing into strike action due to the overwhelming lack of public support.

A recent survey of more than 1,000 users of the Cheapflights News & Views blog found that just one in five air passengers has sympathy for BA cabin crew in the current dispute.

The airline’s flight attendants are unhappy about reductions to staffing levels which were unilaterally imposed by British Airways last year – a move that management says was necessary to curtail massive losses at the flag carrier, but which cabin crew have argued entails safety risks for passengers.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has never filed an objection to the lower staffing levels, which comfortably exceed the legal minimum of one crew member per 50 passengers.

Announcing the union’s commitments to further negotiation before launching strike action, BASSA said: “Dialogue with BA is ongoing and although the progress is painfully slow there has been movement and all avenues should be properly explored before the final button is pushed.”

The new softer tone was not echoed by BA boss Willie Walsh, however, who has reaffirmed to staff that he is primed to tackle the BA strike threat head on if it materialises.

“I am confident that we will all do our best for our customers and ensure we can fly as many aircraft as possible to keep disruption to a minimum,” he wrote in his fortnightly column in British Airways News. “We must all think of our customers and do everything we can to protect their travel plans.”

British Airways stepped up recruitment efforts throughout January and is also known to have trained ’strike-breaker’ volunteer cabin crew from other departments in the company.

© Cheapflights Ltd (Creative Commons image: BriYYZ / Flickr)

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