BA Cabin Crew Strike This Weekend

British Airways has cancelled 29 of its 30 planned flights between Madrid and London-Heathrow due to a planned three-day strike by its cabin crew.

Approximately 12,000 members of staff are expected to cease working between Saturday and Monday in protest against uncertainties concerning their positions when BA merges with Spanish national airline, Iberia.

Only the 07.10hrs flight that leaves Madrid-Barajas for London-Heathrow will proceed as normal, leaving the remaining flights cancelled. From then on, BA hopes to be able to continue to transport 65% of its passengers already booked on this route.

Iberia has arranged a flight from Barajas to Heathrow, leaving at 17.25hrs, in order to help transport the BA Passengers and is likely use A321 airbuses as opposed to the smaller A320s so that more passengers can be moved as quickly as possible.

Cabin crew have been called to strike by their union, Unite, as a result of planned redundancies and wage freezes affecting staff on long-haul flights.

They will hold another strike between March 27 and 30, and have not ruled out further protests beyond April 14 if the conflict is still not resolved.

On Friday, representatives from Unite and from BA attempted to negotiate with a view to calling the strike off.