Chinelo Obogo
After a two-day industrial action embarked upon by British Airlines Pilots’ Association (BALPA) over pay cuts, the airline has said flight operations would resume Tuesday night out of Lagos and Abuja this morning.
Speaking to Daily Sun, BA’s General Manager for Nigeria, Kola Olayinka, said the strike ended Tuesday by 5pm and that commerical flights would resume with immediate effect.
“The strike by BALPA ends today (Tuesday, September 10) by 5pm, so all flights would commence 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 the industrial action on September 9 and 10, causing disruption to 195,000 passengers, with more than 1,700 flights cancelled. The strike which was costing the airline about £40 million a day according to reports, was taking place on its 100th year of operation.
BA has offered a pay rise of 11.5 per cent over three years, which it says would boost the salaries 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 £2 billion a year and the strike was “a last resort and enormous frustration at the way the business is now being run”. However, BA said in a statement: “We understand the frustration and disruption BALPA 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 per cent of our flights.”