Balpa / BA court date set
08.05.08
UK pilots union Balpa and British Airways will meet in court just a few weeks before the airline's new OpenSkies European - US flights subsidiary is due to launch its first flights, abtn.co.uk reports.
Talks between the two sides regarding pay, conditions and recruitment for pilots in the new airline broke down in March. Balpa did not call a strike – despite an 86% ‘Yes’ vote by members in favour of action - after BA threatened to apply for damages, asserting it had a right under the EC Treaty to start operating from another EU Member State.
A Balpa spokesman told abtn: ‘The hearing is on 19 May and the Court has scheduled a week for it. It will tell us whether this legislation in Article 43 of the Treaty that BA is saying will stop a strike has any bearing on our dispute.'
‘We think it doesn't. If they agree, we have nothing to fear and will proceed to strike. We still have to give seven days notice, so the earliest it could be would be two weeks after 19 May, but there is also a chance of a deferred judgement – and of course what some people are saying is that would land us bang in the summer holiday.’
A BA spokesman told the website: ‘This is part of a long process – we don’t expect a decision [that week]. You’ll have to check with Balpa what it is they’re hoping to achieve, but we believe [a strike] was an infringement of our European rights.’
The spokesman added on OpenSkies’ launch: ‘No date has been set yet, but we’re still on course to launch the airline in June. Whether or not they have a legal right to strike or not – we’re still pressing ahead with our plans. The aircraft has been painted and we’re moving at pace with it.’
We think that it is unusual for an airline to be launching next month, but to not have a date and to not be selling tickets for the flights already. It seems to guarantee that the airline gets off to a slow start. We can only assume that BA does not want to inflame the dispute by releasing this information. A pilots strike would be more costly than a few empty seats on a small startup airline.
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