British Airways cabin crew to strike for two days from 10 January over pay row
British Airways (BA) cabin crew will stage a 48-hour strike next week in an ongoing row over "poverty pay" at the airline.
Staff from BA's "mixed fleet" crew, which is based at Heathrow and makes up about 15 per cent of the group's total cabin crew, will be involved in the walkout from 10 January.
On 22 December, a two-day walkout on Christmas Day and Boxing Day was called off after talks between BA and union Unite. However, union members then rejected a new pay offer.
Unite has now accused BA of refusing to extend a mandate for industrial action, saying its members are legally required to strike within 28 days of voting for it unless granted an extension.
"British Airways is needlessly provoking strike action by refusing to extend the mandate of the strike ballot and allow meaningful talks to take place," said Unite national officer Oliver Richardson.
BA said its proposal for its mixed fleet crew "reflects pay awards given by other companies in the UK" and is also consistent with pay deals agreed with Unite "for other BA colleagues".
"We have been informed by Unite that it has called strike action by mixed fleet cabin crew on January 10 and 11," BA said in a statement.
We will plan to ensure that all our customers travel to their destinations. We will publish more details for our customers on 6 January once we have finalised our contingency plans.
We are extremely disappointed that Unite has once again chosen to target our customers.
We are now focused on protecting our customers from this unnecessary and completely unjustified action.
Read more: British Airways will run a full Christmas schedule despite strikes
Unite has maintained workers employed in BA's so-called mixed crew (who have joined since 2010) are on lower pay than other staff.
Previously, the crew rejected a pay rise offer of two per cent.