British Airways readies for another big loss

As the crisis deepens on who will be working for British Airways (BA) come this winter as staff go to ballot on whether to take industrial action against proposed changes to job contracts, the airline is getting ready announce record losses for their summer months. Experts in London have calculated that they think BA will announce losses of close to £252 million for the first half of this financial year. This will leave the carrier without profits for the second year in a row, the first since it was privatised back in the 1980s.

The action comes as Unite union, led by Derek Simpson, applied to the High Court on Friday to try and get an injunction on BA to stop them from altering workers pay and contract conditions for their cabin crew. This move could potentially force a vote among the 14,000 members on whether to take strike action over the busy Christmas period. BA has said that the changes were announced early in October and will include around 1,000 voluntary redundancies, but will not affect the contracts of staff staying on with BA.

Top bosses with BA fear that the potential for strike will be enough to deter passengers from booking flights with them instead opting for a more secure passage. This in turn could lead to a much bigger loss than last year’s, and has the potential to do irreversible damage to the airline. Shareholders at the British airline are anxious over what will happen in the future and are keen for chief executive, Willie Walsh, to finalise the three-way link up on the cards with Iberia Airlines and American Airlines.