According to British Airways, it succeeded to manage the workers’ walk out well on the last Saturday and Sunday. It successfully reinstated more than 26 flights that would have axed due to the prevailing strike.

As said by the chief executive Willie Walsh in a video statement, BA will definitely keep its flights running same as before. According to him, many other have come forward to make sure the BA flights do run into any sort of problems due to the strike.

On the other hand, according to the Unite around 20 per cent of the crew walked out of the work on last Sunday. As informed by the Unite’s joint leader Tony Woodley, 5 cabin crew have broken ranks and 80 other worked have reported sick. He has also appealed the BA to come to a solution soon to stop the next strike which is supposed to be held on March 27, during busy Easter holiday period. He has already appealed to the BA chairman and other influencing people in the company. According to him, the company should consider passengers first and try to negotiate with the cabin crew.

According to BA, more than 97% of the cabin crew at Gatwick has returned to work and around 50% of the crew at Heathrow have turned up. But as reported by the Unite only 300 crew members out of 2200 have restored to work.

BA has promised to make 8 long-haul flights and 18 short-haul flights operate which were supposed to get cancelled due to the strike. BA is also using its non-striking staff to offer seats leased from other carriers like Ryanair.

Even if the strike is off, the union has the option of another, future strike or to appeal against the court ruling.

“We are delighted for our customers that the threat of a Christmas strike has been lifted by the court. It is a decision that will be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of families in the UK and around the world,” said BA.

In recent days, we believe Unite has formed a better understanding of our position and of the ways in which we could move forward. It has also become very clear that our customers do not believe that old-style trade union militancy is relevant to our efforts to move British Airways back toward profitability,” they added.

Your flights might be go as scheduled, if the union accepts the court’s ruling. Let’s hope for the best!

Who’s unhappy will depend on whose flights end up being canceled. British Airways, being a business first, will of course be keeping their expensive international flights. Not because they understand the hardships of being far away from family and wanting to get home for that precious time of year when family reunites. No! Of course not! They make money off of those flights, so they’ll be the last to go.

If you do find yourself among the passengers whose flights have been cut, EU regulations state that BA will be responsible for either refunding your flight or booking your flight for a later date. But as we all know from holiday ads and TV specials, Christmas is once a year! What the heck is the point in rescheduling someone’s flight if they’re going to be late for Christmas? Of course you could cut your losses and reschedule with someone else, but then you’re left hoping BA cancels your flight and that they choose to give you a refund over rescheduling.

But enough about your troubles! This is about the poor BA worker, whom the people support 100%… right?

“Both my husband and I were made redundant in 2008 due to the recession,” said Gill Dunstan, a Telegraph reader. “My son and his family were due to fly home from the US for Christmas for the first time in two and half years. We were all looking forward to it so much, especially his 88 and 89 year old grandparents. It’s very hard to be sympathetic to the BA staff – do they not realise they’re lucky to have jobs and the impact of the cynical timing of their action?”

Good Lord! “…especially his 88 and 89 year old grandparents,” I swear that didn’t bring a tear to my eye… MOVING ON!

That’s just one story, though. We have to look at the general population to get a real feel of the support out there for these BA workers.

A poll this week of Telegraph readers found that only 12 over cent supported the walkout by cabin staff.

I believe those involved in the potential strike might want to rethink their strategy. Or at least hire someone in PR.

[via Telegraph]

It is decided that a new short- and medium-haul airline will operate as an independent network carrier which will have a service like IB has that will be able to feed the profitable long-haul network through its Madrid hub.

According to a spokesperson of ATWOnline, despite the fact that Iberia was considered to be the leader of the Europe-to-Latin America routes, still it had a structural problem in its domestic and European operations. For that reason it was decided to settle a new model that would lower operation costs and there would be no ‘legacy’ work practices due to which it would be possible for Iberia to rival with other carriers.

In spite of the fact that there are opponents of this new model, one should say that it will help to secure jobs. Another thing that happened to Iberia Airline Company was a two day strike that led to the cancellation of 404 flights. The strike was held in order to support salary demands.

Initiators of the strike were 4,300 staff from labor unions that wanted to stop a four-year pay freeze. It is also expected that stoppages will be on November 10 and 11. Such situation can lead to the fact that Iberia will have to compensate losses or buy tickets on other days to its passengers.

Nevertheless, pilots returned to work as Praful Patel, Civil Aviation Minister, promised not to make any reductions in the salary. But according to the words of Bharat Raut, the president of four unions, the strike was finished under the pressure of the government which didn’t give the possibility for other employees to join pilots. The pilots were warned if they did not continue working, their licenses could be revoked.

International flights began to operate immediately meanwhile domestic flights are expected to begin its operation by Sunday afternoon.

Still the company suffers great losses in the amount of $1.5 billion which can lead to the fact that the government will stop financing the company. To improve the situation Air India has to restructure operations to get profit during next three years.

Last year Air India lost more than 800$ million, that is why the company was having an attempt to reduce costs $271 million during next six months. Because of the crash crunch Air India delayed with staff payments in June, company decided to move to a budget carrier in August.

The Air India’s competitor Jet Airways Ltd, the biggest airline company, went on a five-day strike, it happened the same month but earlier. More than 1 000 flights were canceled. The starting point of the issue was the termination services of two pilots – Sam Thomas and D Balaraman. They asserted that company management had changed some clause in the contract. But in sober fact their contracts terminated and in order not to loose the job they tried to negotiate with the management. As nothing eventuated, they gave an indefinite strike call. As a result, Jet Airways reconsidered the issue and offered the job to the pilots. (via Bloomberg)