The BA strike cancellation — Is it really good news?

So the latest rounds of the British Airways cabin crew strike have been halted due to a court injunction. Is this really good news? Or is BA just sweeping a problem under the rug that will end up worse later.

For travelers scheduled to fly in the next few weeks, the injunction is mostly good news. Even then, it’s not an unqualified positive for travelers and travel agents alike.

The biggest problems occur for travelers scheduled this weekend, whose flights were canceled. At this point I have been able to protect all my clients on some backup flight, some more ideal than others.

British Airways, still, has not totally set their weekend schedule. This leaves many clients facing the decision, do they stick with the safe arrangements or wait to see if their original flight has been reinstated?

To further complicate matters, a British appeals court recently decided not to rule on the original injunction until 9:30 a.m. Thursday, which means that the strike COULD end up on again as early as about 9:31 a.m. with no time to make other plans.

For travel agents, who have already reissued tickets, whatever happens is likely to bring at least one more round of paperwork.

For anyone flying this weekend, it’s hard to imagine that the flight attendants will be all that cheery and pleasant. The tension between flight attendants may be toxic. While it’s only speculation, the flights that were not canceled were going to be operated by “replacement” flight attendants and those who were crossing picket lines. With this last-minute change, will all reinstated flights be staffed by flight attendants who were planning to strike?

This bad attitude issue won’t be helped by the fact that one of the sticking points in the negotiations was British Airways’ carried-out threat (so far) to strip the 5,000 flight attendants who struck in March of their flight benefits. In an era of reduced salaries, this benefit is often the main reason people work for airlines.

Another issue is that the court said the strike was illegal on a technicality. The airline simply successfully argued “that Unite failed to carry out its statutory duties by making sure that everyone balloted was told the result.”

The court did not rule that a strike was illegal per se. This means that presumably UNITE can try it again, perhaps during the even busier summer season.

The last British Airways round of strikes, in March of 2010, was basically the postponed strike UNITE called last December around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The strike at that point was basically about whether the airline could operate wide-body planes with one less flight attendant.

In the case of the first postponed strike, the court’s injunction was good news for those 2009 Christmas travelers, but bad news for stranded travelers during March.

As relations between BA and its unions deteriorate, there’s no reason to expect the next strike action will be any milder. In fact, the Guardian, an admittedly liberal British newspaper, puts it pretty well:

Britain’s largest trade union is likely to hold another strike ballot in the wake of tonight’s defeat and call another lengthy walkout if cabin crew endorse industrial action.

What started as a row over how many staff it takes to do a decent in-flight meal service has escalated into a defining battle over who controls an airline with 97% trade union representation. The original cause of the dispute – the removal of at least one flight attendant from BA services – has been lost in a row over the repercussions from a seven-day walkout by cabin crew in March.

One can only hope in the long run that cooler and more rational heads prevail, and that British Airways and UNITE can come up with some solution that doesn’t keep passengers and travel agents squarely in the crosshairs from both sides in an extended battle.

At this point, I’m not holding my breath.