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Over 2,400 Nigerian passengers who booked British Airways may have had their flights cancelled since Monday when the airline’s pilots union went ahead with a strike.
The strike had forced British Airways to cancel “nearly 100 percent” of flights for Monday and Tuesday.
The strike was called for by the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) amid a heated dispute over pay with the airline.
BALPA said Sunday on Twitter that it put forward a proposal to the carrier’s management last Wednesday but had yet to receive a reply.
The airline said it was forced to cancel so many flights because “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”.
Customers who had flights booked for Monday and Tuesday would likely “not be able to travel as planned”, British Airways said. The airline also advised customers not to go to the airport.
BusinessDay’s checks show that the carrier which operates from Lagos and Abuja airports to Heathrow airport in London every day processes over 300 passengers on each flight. This implies that on a return flight, the carrier processes 600 passengers and for the two daily flights, it processes 1,200 daily passengers.
For the two days the carrier cancels its flight, therefore, nothing less than 2,400 Lagos- and Abuja-bound passengers will be affected.
Bankole Bernard, president, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), who confirmed the development, said passengers and the airline are grossly affected by the development and passengers have had to reschedule their flights.
BusinessDay’s checks show that unlike other regions in the world, the European Union (EU) actually regulates the compensation airlines have to pay passengers in the event of delays or cancellations.
This policy, called “EU261”, mandates that airlines pay passengers cash compensation ranging between €250 and €600 depending on how long their flight was scheduled to be, and how badly they were delayed.
This compensation has to be paid under a vast majority of circumstances, including mechanical failures, crews showing up late, etc.
If the carrier is to follow the policy, the 2,400 passengers whose should get at least €250, which will amount to €600,000.
British Airways said in a statement posted Monday that it remains “ready and willing to return to talks with BALPA”.
Members of the pilots union voted 93 percent in favour of a strike in July. BALPA said last week that it would be willing to call it off if British Airways returned to the negotiating table.
According to its website, BALPA represents more than 10,000 pilots in the United Kingdom — more than 85 percent of all commercial pilots who fly there.
The pilots’ union also intends to strike September 27. British Airways said Monday that it would be in contact “in the next few weeks” to let customers who are travelling on or around that date know if they are affected.
While the union is calling for higher wages, British Airways has said its offer of an 11.5 percent increase over three years was “fair” and above the United Kingdom’s current rate of inflation.
In a statement released last month, it said the strike could “destroy the travel plans of tens of thousands of our customers”. It called the strike “a reckless course of action”.
IFEOMA OKEKE
