Chinelo Obogo
Following the two-day industrial action embarked on by the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) over pay cuts, the airline has said that flights will operate tonight (September 10) out of Lagos and out of Abuja tomorrow (September 11) morning.
Speaking to Daily Sun, the BA General Manager for Nigeria, Kola Olayinka, said the strike ends today (September 10) by 5pm and commerical flights will resume with immediate effect.
“The strike by BALPA ends today(September 10) by 5pm, so all flights commences with immediate effect. All flights are operating tonight (September 10) out of Lagos by 10.30pm and out of Abuja tomorrow (September 11) morning,” Olayinka said.
BA pilots embarked on an industrial action on September 9 and 10, 2019, and caused a disruption to 195,000 passengers, with more than 1,700 flights cancelled.
The strike cost the airline about £40million a day according to reports, and they are taking place in the airline’s 100th year of operation.
BA has offered a pay rise of 11.5 per cent over three years, which it says would boost the pay of some captains to £200,000, but BALPA says its members want a bigger share of the company’s profits.
BALPA said on its twitter handle that pilots had made sacrifices in the past to assist the company including cuts to salary, pension and leave, but the airline was now recording profits of £2bn a year and the strike was “a last resort and with enormous frustration at the way the business is now being run”.
When BA said in a statement: “We understand the frustration and disruption Balpa’s strike action has caused our customers. After many months of trying to resolve the pay dispute, we are extremely sorry that it has come to this.
“We remain ready and willing to return to talks with Balpa. Unfortunately, with no detail from Balpa on which pilots would strike, we had no way of predicting how many would come to work or which aircraft they are qualified to fly, so we had no option but to cancel nearly 100 percent of our flights.”