Senior British Airways cabin crew face 55% pay cut with salaries slashed to £24,000
SENIOR British Airways cabin crew face a 55 per cent pay cut with salaries slashed to £24,000.
BA wants its crew on 24K-a-year after sacking 12,000 staff and ripping up existing contracts.
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Staff were written to by airline bosses today setting out new controversial terms and conditions.
Under the new pay offer, crew will also receive commission from inflight sales and performance levels, and a five per cent ‘flex’ allowance.
They will have access to benefits including up to 11 per cent of company pension contributions, a private health care cash plan, and dental insurance.
BA is cutting cabin crew supervisory roles from 1,860 to 971 and axing main crew numbers from 12,402 to 8,591.
They plan to move to a single crew team, from the existing three separate fleets, licensed to work across all Boeing and Airbus jets.
But staff are furious at the new salary, with current lower paid mixed fleet crew average between £23,000 and £28,000.
More senior crew - customer service managers - earn around £35,000 a year all in.
And some crew leaders - customer service directors - are on up to £80,000 a year.
A BA worker said: “Crews face a 55 per cent pay cut depending on the number of flights they operate on. They are appalled.”
STRIKE THREAT
Unions have based legal action against BA and staff are talking of strike action.
The new pay revelation came as Willie Walsh, boss of BA’s parent firm, vowed to press ahead with plans to axe 12,000 staff.
The airline has had to fork out around £460million in cash for refunds to 921,000 passengers on 2.1 million flights.
There are 47,400 bookings outstanding and another 346,000 bookings were cancelled by passengers in return for a voucher.
But BA has been accused by dozens of MPs of using the pandemic crisis as an excuse to axe staff and switch remaining workers on to cheaper contracts.
Unite union leaders hit out stating that BA wants to “make 42,000 employees redundant, the graciously offer 30,000 ‘lucky’ staff new contracts on interior pay, terms and conditions whilst throwing the remaining 12,000 onto the unemployment scrap heap.
“All to preserve the £10billion cash reserves of BA and IAG and make even more obscene profits when the crisis is over.”
Unmoved Willie Walsh, head of BA parent firm IAG, wrote to the head of the cross-party Transport Select Committee Huw Merriman MP, vowing not to “put our [staff reduction] plans on hold”.
CREW'S BRUSH WITH COVID
Meanwhile a woman boarded a British Airways flight from London to Hong Kong knowing she had coronavirus, it was feared yesterday.
Cabin crew are furious that they worked alongside and served a passenger with deadly Covid-19 on a flight from Heathrow.
She was sat in seat 32F on BA Flight 027 which arrived in Hong Kong on Sunday.
Health chiefs were urgently investigating the incident and believe she had already been diagnosed before departure from the UK.
Officials were contacting passengers near her on the 11hr 30 mins flight.
Authorities in Hong Kong were said to have been aware of the woman before she left the UK.
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One BA crew member said: “Staff have been put in unnecessary danger. We are all very worried that we may now have the virus too. The woman admitted having the virus on arrival but hadn’t declared it.”
BA told The Sun: “We follow the guidance from the UK Government and global health authorities, including Public Health England and the World Health Organisation.
“We have taken several steps to greatly reduce contact between customers and crew, and personal protective equipment is available to them.”
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