The British Airline Pilots’ Association says its pilots deserve a share of British Airways' success
ON A NORMAL Monday morning Terminal 5, Heathrow airport’s busiest, is a hive of activity. Over 100,000 passengers arrive or leave for over 150 destinations. But on September 9th its departure halls were almost completely abandoned. The only flights taking off were to Cairo, Madrid and Tokyo. The reason was a two-day strike by British Airways pilots and their union, the British Airline Pilots’ Association , a walkout that grounded almost 1,700 flights due to carry at least 280,000 people.
At first glance, it would seem that BA’s pilots have little to complain about. In July they voted to reject a pay deal which would have increased their salaries by 11.5% over three years—more than average salaries in Britain are forecast to rise over the period—and which would have taken the annual pay of a long-haul captain to over £200,000 . But BALPA says its pilots also want a share of BA’s profits. During the last recession, its members accepted a 2.
BA is not the only airline with which BALPA is in dispute. Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, is also feeling its pilots’ new-found assertiveness keenly. In 2017 it was forced to recognise unions for the first time after a shortage of pilots had forced it to cancel 20,000 flights that autumn. And this summer it has been hit by a long series of strikes. Last month its British pilots called five days of strikes; on September 4th they announced seven further days of walkouts.
Yet the rapid growth of Europe’s airline industry, which created the shortage of pilots that unions are trying to exploit, is coming to an end. In each of the past four years passenger numbers grew by 7% or more. In the first half of 2019 the rate fell to around 3.5%, because of slowing economic growth and the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes owing to safety problems.
Unfortunately for passengers, that is unlikely to bring a swift resolution to BA’s and Ryanair’s disputes. BALPA wants to get as good a deal as it can for its members before the glut of pilots gets worse. And Mr Cruz is worried that if he gives in to the pilots, cabin crew and ground staff could start making similar demands. With increasingly sluggish demand for air travel and a possible no-deal Brexit likely to dent profits over the next year, he wants to defend his margins to the hilt.
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