Talks aimed at averting the BA strike broke down this evening (10 March) in a development that paves the way for the Unite union to unveil walkout dates on Thursday.

The travelling public’s patience had been pushed to the limit as negotiations over the looming BA cabin crew strike passed two separate deadlines set by the union and the flag carrier.

But with both sides in the dispute failing to see eye-to-eye on several key sticking points, negotiations at the Trade Union Congress have now officially collapsed.

The impasse means that Unite is likely to announce BA strike dates on Thursday.

BA was earlier accused of dithering over the negotiations, with a Tuesday 5pm deadline and a subsequent Wednesday 12pm deadline both passing in silence.

The flag carrier found itself under intense pressure to make a final call over the ongoing negotiations as passengers have been kept in the dark ever since Unite’s 12,000 BA cabin crew members voted in favour of industrial action by a majority of 81 per cent last month.

Speculating that a deal was unlikely, Saj Ahmad of FBE Aerospace told Cheapflights earlier today: “One of the fundamental problems of talks late in the day is that you have to wonder what on earth the parties have been discussing without success in the preceding months.

“Already a loss-making airline, BA cannot afford to spill yet more red ink. It has to draw a line in the sand soon, otherwise it will lose even more business and stay unprofitable.”

Unite had tabled new proposals purporting to deliver £63 million in savings and incorporating a 2.6 per cent pay cut for cabin crew this year. Crucially, however, its plan limited new staffing levels to certain flights – a constraint which BA boss Willie Walsh was never likely to accept.

With the BA strike now certain to go ahead, Mr Walsh will be drawing from the contingency plans his team has been working on since the dispute first erupted last year.

Extraordinary measures have already been taken to counteract the effect of any BA strike, with 6,000 volunteer cabin crew being drafted in from across the company – 1,000 already fully trained – and 23 aircraft complete with stand-in flight attendants leased from other carriers.

“These plans will allow us to protect our customers’ travel arrangements better than many people imagined possible,” the BA boss commented last week.

© Cheapflights Ltd (Creative Commons image: Canon EOS / Flickr)

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